Direct Selling: a Marketing Strategy to Shorten Distances between Production and Consumption

Direct sales became in recent years a diversification strategy increasingly used by farms to answer theCAP reform, as well as to react to the continuous price squeeze. Direct sales is in fact a form of marketing that allowfarmers to retain a higher share of the final value of products. Far from being a way back to tradition, short chains anddirect sales can be seen as strategies to capture new segments of demand interested in local and fresh food, and inmore direct contact between consumers and suppliers.The aim of this work is to study the recent evolution of direct selling in Italy and the determinants of the adoption ofthis marketing strategy. The first part of the paper analyses the evolution of Italian short supply chains and thedevelopment of the related institutional framework (national laws and financial incentives). In the second part of thepaper the analysis is focused on the determinants of the adoption of direct selling. Specific attention will be devotedto empirically test if the probability of using of this marketing channel is influenced by the farm location inproximity to urban areas.