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El ecommerce in Mexico is experiencing one of the fastest growth in the world, and so during 2021, its sales ($401.3 billion pesos) reached a growth of 27% compared to sales in 2020 ($316 billion pesos).
As we will see in the following table, compared to large e-commerce economies such as Brazil or India, Mexico is practically at the same level of annual growth and more than 10 points above the world average, which for 2021 was 16.3%.
But this growth is not only in 2021, for the last three years, Mexico has been among the 5 countries with the highest growth in ecommerce, demonstrating the potential for expansion of this market.
Within Latin America, another country that has also registered interesting levels of growth is Argentina, which is projected to be an increasingly representative player in the coming years.
Also read: ecommerce in numbers, significant figures 2020 -2021
Overview of e-commerce in Mexico 2021
After this brief but important introduction to the Growth of Mexican e-commerce during 2021, let's move on to talking about other indicators that are also quite relevant to identifying how e-commerce behaved in the country and what the trends are.
Women Leading Mexican Ecommerce
Within the electronic commerce, the role of women has been gaining relevance, not only do we see today that 61.3% of Ecommerce are led by women in Mexico, but 58.6% of online stores have been created by them. At the Latin American level, we found that its leadership in ecommerce reaches 65.6%.
In addition to the above, the number of women who shop online is also greater than that of men. During 2021, 55% of the total number of Mexican shoppers were female, with the predominant age range between 25 and 44.
Featured categories in ecommerce 2021
During the past year, some categories ranked higher in Mexicans' shopping preferences; food delivery topped the list, followed by fashion and electronics as the second and third favorites on the digital channel.
Among those that experienced significant growth, we found beauty and personal care (6%), furniture and home decor (7%), appliances (9%) and sports (5%). For its part, the pharmacy reduced the preference level by 11 points, which is attributable to the increase in the purchase of these products during the strongest presence of Covid.
Preferred payment methods for ecommerce
The debit card was positioned as the preferred online payment method for Mexicans, however, other alternatives, such as the departmental card, cash on delivery and credit cards, are still present in online purchases. When it comes to shopping, Mexicans use a debit card more (88%), compared to 63% who use a credit card.
As for cash payments, although it fell by 7 points compared to 2020, we will have to ask ourselves why it is still so relevant in the country, is it still an issue of distrust towards purchases by ecommerce? Later we will see what the perception of security is like in this field.
Logistics landscape in ecommerce
Order delivery
During 2021, shipping to the home, your own or that of a family member, continued to be the preferred delivery options for Mexicans, and it is to be expected, nothing is more related to comfort than home, however, other modalities such as shipping to the workplace showed a positive trend (four points more than the previous year), while collection at pickup points fell by 5 points compared to 2020, registering only 6% of preference.
Returns and reverse logistics
2 out of 10 buyers of ecommerce made a return during 2021, among the reasons that generated these behaviors, the following were the most common:
At the same time, we found that there are certain fears in the current Mexican buyer, mostly related to the logistics operation, addressing them is extremely important to promote sales and ensure a good shopping experience.
From the above, we can deduce that product failure, wrong shipment and non-compliance with delivery dates are part of the most common consumer pain, points that correspond to the logistics operation and are causes of return that have been increasing between 2020 and 2021, which is an important point to be evaluated by ecommerce. In addition to the quality and information they provide, poor logistics can also affect their brand reputation.
The logistics operation is of paramount importance in the growth of online stores, and it continues to be a pain point for them as well. If you are looking to improve your delivery process or have questions about what characteristics a logistics provider should have, allowing you to completely disregard the inventory, readiness and delivery of your orders, while improving customer satisfaction and you can focus on other important areas of the business such as improving the product and its positioning, we share our 3PL Check List, download it, take note and evaluate each point, if your logistics provider doesn't allow you or isn't up to scaled growth through a win-win ratio, it's not the best option.
As an essential point, you should start by hiring the services of a specialist in this field, that is, of a Fulfillment, these have as their core business the ecommerce and they will have the technology and expertise to efficiently manage your logistics operation, unlike a 3PL that focuses on traditional retail. The needs, speed and dynamism of ecommerce are different and you should hire a supplier that can meet these requirements.
Every day more Mexicans are aware of the benefits of shopping online. Purchasing products on the internet is increasingly part of people's daily lives, where the need for faster delivery is intensifying. What is the delivery time for your orders? How many errors do you record per month when listing shipments? Is there damage during the transportation of the products? 3 important indicators that you must measure and implement improvement actions, otherwise your return percentage will continue to grow.
Perception of security, online shopping
The perception of security continues to grow, 7 out of 10 Mexican shoppers perceive that it is safe to buy products and services online, which may be due to the fact that certain behaviors such as incidents with cloned cards and unrecognized charges decreased during 2021.
Preference among Marketplaces
The pure players Amazon and Mercado Libre led the buying preference of Mexicans during 2021, registering more than 60% of the purchases registered on this channel, followed by other Marketplaces such as Liverpool and Walmart. Cross-border players such as Shein, Shopee or Ebay had between 5 and 10% notoriety.
As we could see, 2021 recorded positive figures for ecommerce Mexican, which continues to consolidate it as one of the most important in the region. This not only means a very good projection for this market in the coming years, but also a great challenge for current and future ones ecommerce, who every day have to guarantee better service experiences, because not only will there be more buyers, but more demanding and selective buyers.
Also read: Marketplace in Latin America, the kings of online sales
Today more than ever, logistics acquires a value never seen before in e-commerce, where only those ecommerce able to meet the customer's delivery needs, in terms of times, delivery methods, costs, returns and traceability, they will be able to count on their preference.
Do not take this issue lightly, or downplay it, if you don't guarantee the efficiency of the entire operation, you will hardly achieve sustainable scalability over time.
Are you looking for an ally that enhances your delivery process, compliance and customer satisfaction? Do not hesitate to contact us, we are the best Fulfillment center for ecommerce in Mexico, Colombia and Brazil, just click Here.
During 2021 in Cubbo:
* Our registered customers Savings of 21% in operating costs
* 97.1% of the products received, were processed and were ready to sell In 24 hours.
* We had a 99.7% shipping compliance
* We are registered at Precision in Order Preparation of 99.9875%, that is, 1 error for every 8,000 shipments.
* 60% of our deliveries in CDMX were made The Same Day
* We Carry Out Nationwide deliveries in 1.3 days Average
Sources of information:
Online sales study, the Mexican digital consumer AMVO 2022
