EDIFACT in Italian retail
EDIFACT remains the central operational language of Italian retail: orders, dispatch advices, price catalogues, inventory reports. The EDIFACT layer predates the SdI and coexists with it — the SdI covers the fiscal dimension (official fattura), EDIFACT covers the logistics and commercial dimension (orders, deliveries, returns) between retailers and suppliers.
Italian retail players
| Retailer | Format | Annual volume (est.) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conad | Cooperative | ~120M messages | Italy retail #1, ~3,200 stores, ~16% market share |
| Coop Italia | Cooperative | ~110M messages | ~13% market share, GS1 Italy hub for the EANCOM standard |
| Carrefour Italia | Hypers/Supers | ~80M messages | Carrefour Group EANCOM subset, same guidelines as Carrefour France |
| Esselunga | Premium supers | ~75M messages | Dense network in Lombardy/Veneto, own GLNs for direct store delivery |
| Pam Panorama | Supers | ~25M messages | Mid-cap Pam Group, North Italy presence |
| Bennet | Hypermarkets | ~22M messages | Regional North-West, little PEPPOL integration |
| MD Discount | Discount | ~35M messages | Podini brothers, ~800 stores |
| Eurospin | Discount | ~50M messages | ~1,200 stores, hard-discount segment leader |
| Lidl Italia | Discount | ~60M messages | Lidl Group international subset, EANCOM 2002 S4 base |
| Selex Gruppo Commerciale | Buying group | ~45M messages | Aggregates A&O, Famila, Megastore, Sole 365 — ~20% cumulative market share |
Typical EDIFACT messages
The order-delivery-invoice cycle in retail typically involves 6-7 EDIFACT messages per nominal case:
- ORDERS (D.96A) — purchase order issued by the buying centre or directly by the point of sale to the supplier. EAN-13 or GTIN-14 referencing mandatory.
- ORDRSP (D.96A) — acknowledgement and confirmation of the order by the supplier (full, partial, refused).
- DESADV (D.96A or D.01B) — dispatch advice sent by the supplier at loading time, with detail of pallets, SSCC, expiry dates (DDM), batch numbers.
- RECADV (D.96A) — receipt advice issued by the retailer on warehouse arrival, with possible gaps (received qty vs advised).
- INVOIC (D.96A — legacy) — EDI invoice historically used, superseded since 2019 by the FatturaPA XML transiting the SdI.
- PRICAT (D.01B) — price and commercial conditions catalogue, annual or quarterly, rolling updates.
- INVRPT (D.96A) — inventory report sent by the retailer to the supplier in VMI (Vendor Managed Inventory) schemes.
UNA:+.? '
UNB+UNOC:3+8001120000004:14+8001120080007:14+260519:0815+1001'
UNH+1+ORDERS:D:96A:UN:EAN008'
BGM+220+12345678+9'
DTM+137:20260519:102'
DTM+2:20260605:102'
NAD+BY+8001120080007::9'
NAD+SU+8005678901234::9'
LIN+1++8001120004001:EN'
QTY+21:240:PCE'
PRI+AAA:0.95'
UNS+S'
CNT+2:1'
UNT+12+1'
UNZ+1+1001'GS1 Italy EANCOM 2002
GS1 Italy (formerly Indicod-ECR until 2010) is the national issuer of GTIN, GLN and
SSCC codes and the maintainer of the Italian adaptation of EANCOM 2002.
Documentation published at gs1it.org/standard/eancom/.
- EANCOM 2002 S4 — Selection 4, historically used for ORDERS, DESADV, INVOIC. Reduced qualifier set for retail.
- EANCOM 2002 S5 — Selection 5, more recent, supports EPCIS, RFID, data quality (Best Before Date BBD, Use By Date UBD, lot/serial).
- Italy-specific codes: qualifier 9 (GS1 GLN), qualifier 30 (internal retailer address ID), qualifier 91 (proprietary supplier ID).
- Migration guidelines: Indicod-ECR (now Indicod-ECR Italy within GS1) publishes technical sheets for moving from EANCOM S4 to S5 without disruption.
- PEPPOL pilot: since 2023, GS1 Italy runs a joint pilot with PEPPOL Italia to progressively migrate INVOIC EDI to UBL PEPPOL BIS Billing 3.0 — not yet in production by 2026.
Coexistence with the SdI
Current decoupling:
- ORDERS, DESADV, RECADV, PRICAT, INVRPT — remain in EDIFACT, on existing operational channels (AS2, OFTP2, GS1 NMP). Not affected by the SdI.
- INVOIC (the fattura) — migrated to FatturaPA XML, sent via SdI. Some retailers still issue a mirror EDIFACT INVOIC for internal accounting reconciliation, but without fiscal value.
- Self-billing / consignment — the fattura is issued by the buyer (retailer) on behalf of the seller (supplier). Must also transit the SdI, with TipoDocumento TD16 (self-billing) or TD24 (fattura differita).
Transports: AS2, OFTP2, GS1 NMP
Three protocols dominate in Italian retail:
- AS2 (RFC 4130) — reference protocol since 2010 for EANCOM exchanges, ~70% of Italian retail EDIFACT messages.
- OFTP2 (RFC 5024) — historically used by industrial subsidiaries (food, beverages), still active on buying centres open to European producers.
- GS1 NMP (Network Message Platform) — proprietary VAN network of GS1 Italy, operated in partnership with OpenText. Targets actors without their own AS2 infrastructure.
- SFTP / FTP+SSH — still used by ~15% of actors for large INVRPT and PRICAT batches.
Volumes and statistics
Estimates by GS1 Italy / Indicod-ECR / Osservatorio Digital B2B Politecnico di Milano 2024:
| Indicator | 2024 value |
|---|---|
| EDIFACT messages (all retailers) | ~600M messages |
| EDI-connected suppliers | ~12,000 Italian companies |
| EDI penetration rate (top 50 retailers) | ~92% |
| Savings vs paper (estimate) | ~€2.3 billion / year |
| Order error reduction (vs phone/fax) | −85% to −95% |