According to the findings of the "Step into the Next Economy" study, more than 80% of Italian small and medium-sized businesses will use an online sales platform in the future. Today, 50.4% of businesses use e-commerce to sell their products or services, but 32.1% do not rule it out in the future. 65.7% of those who sell online (2 out of 3) still see it as a strategic business tool. Owned websites (35.1%) are preferred over third-party marketplaces (15.3%). In terms of online order acquisition, websites are the most popular (73.3%), followed by more traditional channels used primarily by smaller businesses, such as WhatsApp / Telegram (32.8%), telephone (25.9%), and SMS (17%). The most common trend for product delivery is to rely on external delivery services (46.9%), followed by customer pick-up at points of sale (41.5%) - emphasizing the importance of "phygital" purchasing methods - and finally direct delivery by retailers themselves (39%). The study also discovered that digital payments surpassed cash payments in Italy for the first time.