Italy makes clear pricing a legal duty, not a design choice.
Most of Europe tells you to publish who you are. Italy also tells you to state your prices clearly, saying whether they include tax and delivery. That turns a thing most businesses treat as a marketing decision into something written into the statute.
Start with the free 15 point site check. Two working days, no call required.
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What is actually different about selling into Italy
The specifics that change the build, not a list of countries I will work in.
The regulator
The Garante per la protezione dei dati personali, among the more assertive European authorities on tracking and third country transfers.
What the site must publish
Article 7 of D.Lgs. 70/2003 requires the name or company name, the domicile or registered office, details that allow the provider to be contacted quickly, and the VAT number where the activity is subject to VAT. It has to be directly and permanently accessible.
Prices, in the same article
The same provision requires prices and tariffs to be indicated clearly, stating whether they include tax, delivery costs and other additions. Hiding the number behind a quote form is a weaker position here than elsewhere.
Checkout
Euro. Cards and PayPal carry most online volume, and buyers in some sectors still expect the option to pay on delivery.
What usually goes wrong on an Italian site
No partita IVA anywhere on the site
Required where the activity is subject to VAT, and one of the first things a cautious Italian buyer or a competitor looks for.
Prices behind a contact form
Common everywhere and a weaker position in Italy, where the same article that governs your legal notice also asks for prices to be stated clearly with tax and delivery spelled out.
English pages for an Italian market
Italy has lower working English than northern Europe and searches overwhelmingly in Italian. An English only site is invisible to most of the market.
Tracking that never survived the Garante's position
Measurement set up years ago and never revisited, sending data out of Europe with a banner that does not genuinely gate it.
Not sure which of those it is? Send the web address and the written 15 point check says so in two working days, free.
What the work actually is
The same list whether you are in Italy or anywhere else I work.
The 15 point technical check
Speed, indexing, structured data, redirects, consent and the rest, written out in the order worth fixing rather than the order a crawler found them.
Pages for what buyers search
Built from real search data in the language your buyers type, not translated from an English page and hoped over.
A redirect map before anything moves
Every old address mapped to a new one and tested before launch, because this is the step that loses rankings when it is skipped.
Tracking that waits for consent
Nothing loads before a choice is made, and the banner says what it does. This is the part regulators are actually acting on.
Google Ads on a flat fee
A fixed monthly amount whatever the spend, so the advice does not get more expensive when the budget does.
Shopify and WooCommerce moves
Products, variants, media and URLs moved with the search positions held, on the same domain where that is possible.
Custom systems when software is the problem
Order flows, stock feeds and internal tools, when the honest answer is that no amount of marketing fixes the process underneath.
Plain monthly notes
What was done, what it changed and what is next, in a page you can read without a glossary.
Want the number first? Every price is published, including the ones I would not charge you.
One article, two duties most sites only half meet
Article 7 of the legislative decree that brought the European e-commerce rules into Italian law does two jobs at once. It sets the identification list that every European country has in some form, and it adds a pricing duty that most of them do not spell out: prices and tariffs indicated clearly, with it made explicit whether tax, delivery and other costs are included.
Most Italian sites satisfy part of the first duty and ignore the second entirely, because publishing prices feels like a commercial decision rather than a legal one. That happens to line up with how I work anyway: every price on this site is published, including the ones I would not charge you, and the argument for doing it is the same argument an Italian buyer is already entitled to make.
Italian copy, because the market is not bilingual
Working English in Italy is lower than in the Nordics, the Netherlands or Germany, and commercial searching happens in Italian almost without exception. That makes the language question simpler than it is further north: there is no serious argument for an English only site aimed at Italian buyers, and the only real decision is who writes the Italian.
Translated copy fails here for the usual reason. It preserves your phrasing rather than adopting the phrasing your buyers already use, so the pages read acceptably and compete for the wrong terms. The research and the writing have to be done together, in the language, from real Italian search data.
A furniture retailer: three storefronts, three ad accounts and a CRM
A Dutch furniture retailer with three brands and a ten to twelve week order cycle, where the online numbers alone made a busy business look like a failing one until the measurement was fixed.
What I will not do
Said before you ask, because it is usually the deciding part.
Promise a position
Nobody controls Google's results, and anyone who promises a ranking is either guessing or lying. I will tell you what is winnable and what is not, with the search data in front of you.
Hold your accounts
Analytics, Search Console and every ad account are registered in your name from day one. If you stop working with me you lose nothing but me.
Bill a percentage of ad spend
A percentage pays me more when you spend more, which is the wrong incentive. Advertising is a flat monthly fee whatever the budget.
Take the work if it is the wrong spend
If the free check says your problem is not a website problem, the report says so and I tell you what would actually move the number.
Rather just ask? One question by email or WhatsApp is fine.
The rest of Western Europe
Neighbouring markets, each with its own regulator, language and checkout.
Every market I work in is listed on where I work, with what differs in each one.
Fair questions before you get in touch
You are not based here. Does that matter?
It has not so far. Everything runs by email and WhatsApp, the accounts are in your name, and the work is the same work wherever it is typed. I am in Pakistan and I say so on every page, because finding that out later is worse than reading it now.
Do we have to show our partita IVA on the website?
Where your activity is subject to VAT, the article requires the VAT number or an equivalent identification number among the information that has to be directly and permanently accessible. It costs nothing to publish and its absence is noticed.
Does the pricing rule mean we must publish a price list?
It means that where you do indicate prices, they have to be clear and say whether tax and delivery are included. It is a stronger nudge towards published pricing than most European rules give, and worth taking seriously rather than reading as narrowly as possible.
Who writes the Italian?
A native speaker, working from Italian search data rather than from a translation of the English pages. I build the structure and the technical work around it.
Why are the prices on the website?
Because the alternative is a quote form, and a quote form exists to get you on a call before you know the number. The free 15 point check, the 290 euro audit and the monthly and rebuild prices are all published. You can decide before you ever write to me.
How long before any of this shows up in search?
A new page on a site that already carries some authority can move within weeks. On a site with very few links pointing at it, expect months, and expect the first movement on specific questions rather than on the obvious commercial terms. I will not give you a date, because nobody controls the result. What I will give you is the order of the work and what each step is meant to change.
Send your web address. That is the whole first step.
The written 15 point check comes back within two working days, free. It says what is holding the site back, in the order worth fixing.