Ecommerce in Italy: bitcoin as a payment method

Bitcoin is the third most widely used payment method on ecommerce platforms in Italy. The data comes from an analysis carried out by SEMrush, a platform for managing online visibility. The data takes into account a year of research, from October 2018 to September 2019.

Italians prefer to use PayPal (1,383,000 payments per month), followed by PostePay (a monthly average of 1,175,000 payments), and third, indeed, bitcoin. 

This is a surprising result: Bitcoin is used on average 215,800 times a month. The queen of cryptocurrencies is able to do even better than American Express, which ranks fourth in this ranking with 189,000 monthly transactions. The use of credit cards goes down, used “only” 33,950 times a month. 

The positioning of bitcoin is surprising to say the least, since this is a payment method that is not accepted by all online portals. In a way, bitcoin is no match for its competitors, such as PayPal for example, which are now accepted everywhere. Nevertheless, bitcoin is winning the confidence of consumers. The month in which bitcoin was used most for online payments was June 2019, with about 368,000 transactions. Not a surprise when considering that June 2019 coincides with the annual peak of bitcoin, which reached almost $13,000 in value. 

The analysis of SEMrush also shows that there is an increase in purchases made by Italians on ecommerce platforms. In 2018 the amount spent was 40 billion euros. 62% of Italian residents admit that they have made purchases on the Internet at least once a year.

As far as bitcoin is concerned, its spread can no longer be denied or questioned. It is becoming an increasingly popular payment method not only online but also in physical stores thanks in part to the rapid solutions provided by Lightning Network.