Globalization Vs. Territorial Markets: selling typical products on the Internet

Technology, and most of all Internet, is considered the most important tool for the ongoing economic globalization process, allowing the commercialization of standardized products on a large international scale (Levitt, 1983). Internet is also the real opportunity for micro companies to reach foreign markets at affordable costs (Hoffman and Novak, 1996). This paper focuses on the case of sales of gastronomic typical products on the Internet, probably one of the best e-commerce applications. In fact, no any other old goods can suit so naturally to the virtual market as typical products do. Two are the fundamental characteristics of typical, “made in” products: first of all, they have to be specialty goods, differentiated from their competitors; then they have to be regional goods, that means having deep roots in their original territory. In the second part of the paper it will be interpreted how typical products find in Internet the way to valorize their local and regional diversities on international markets: this way Internet has reversed the famous international management postulate “think global, act local” into a new one: “think local, act global”. Moreover, a partial empirical research about Italian companies selling gastronomic products on the Internet will be illustrated in order to verify quantitatively and qualitatively the state of art of this virtual business.