Overview
- Confcommercio’s study reports that Italy lost about 118,000 fixed-location shops and roughly 23,000 ambulant activities between 2012 and 2024.
- There are more than 105,000 vacant retail premises nationwide, with about a quarter empty for over a year, and the group estimates a potential additional loss of 114,000 enterprises by 2035 if no action is taken.
- Italy counted over 534,000 retail enterprises in 2024, including about 434,000 fixed-location retailers, nearly 71,000 ambulant businesses, and 30,000 operating through internet or mail order.
- Fixed-location sectors with the steepest contractions include fuel distributors (-42.2%), cultural and recreational goods (-34.5%), non-specialized retail (-34.2%), furniture and hardware (-26.7%), and clothing and footwear (-25%), while online-focused firms grew about 115%.
- Hospitality has shifted as restaurants expanded (+17.1%) and traditional hotels declined (-9.5%) alongside a surge in other accommodation types (+92.1%), and Confcommercio will press its policy agenda at the inCittà event in Bologna on November 20–21.