E-commerce in Mexico: 2021 Overview
Estimated reading time: 6 Min
E-commerce in Mexico is experiencing one of the fastest growth rates in the world. During 2021, sales ($401.3 billion pesos) grew 27% compared to 2020 sales ($316 billion pesos).
As we will see in the table below, compared to major e-commerce economies such as Brazil or India, Mexico is practically at the same annual growth level and more than 10 points above the global average, which for 2021 was 16.3%.
But this growth is not limited to 2021 alone. Over the last three years, Mexico has ranked among the top 5 countries in e-commerce growth, demonstrating this market's expansion potential.
Within Latin America, Argentina is another country that has also been recording interesting growth levels and is projected to become an increasingly significant player in the coming years.
Read also: E-commerce by the Numbers: Key Figures 2020–2021
General overview of e-commerce in Mexico 2021
After this brief but important introduction on Mexican e-commerce growth during 2021, let's look at other indicators that are equally relevant for understanding how e-commerce performed in the country and what the trends are.
Women leading Mexican e-commerce
Within e-commerce, the role of women has been gaining relevance. Today we see that 61.3% of e-commerce businesses in Mexico are led by women, and 58.6% of online stores were created by them. At the Latin American level, their leadership in e-commerce reaches 65.6%.
In addition to the above, the number of women who shop online is also higher than men. During 2021, 55% of total Mexican shoppers were female, with the predominant age range between 25 and 44 years old.
Top categories in e-commerce 2021
During the past year, some categories had greater positioning in Mexican shoppers' purchase preferences. Food delivery topped the list, followed by fashion and electronics as the second and third most preferred in the digital channel.
Among those that experienced significant growth, we find beauty and personal care (6%), furniture and home décor (7%), appliances (9%), and sports (5%). Pharmacy, meanwhile, dropped 11 points in preference level, attributable to increased purchases of these products during the stronger presence of Covid.
Preferred payment methods for e-commerce
Debit cards positioned themselves as the preferred online payment method for Mexicans. However, other alternatives such as store credit cards, cash on delivery, and credit cards remain present in online purchases. When buying, Mexicans use debit cards more (88%), compared to 63% who use credit cards.
Regarding cash payments, although they dropped 7 points compared to 2020, we must ask why they remain so relevant in the country. Is it still a matter of distrust toward e-commerce purchases? Later we will see how security perception stands in this area.
Logistics overview in e-commerce
Order delivery
During 2021, home delivery—whether to one's own home or a relative's—continued to be the preferred option among Mexicans. Nothing relates more to convenience than home, although other modalities such as delivery to the workplace showed a positive trend (four points more than the previous year), while pickup at collection points dropped 5 points compared to 2020, registering only 6% preference.
Returns and reverse logistics
2 out of every 10 e-commerce shoppers made a return during 2021. Among the reasons that drove these behaviors, the following were the most common:
We also found that there are certain fears among today's Mexican shoppers, mostly related to logistics operations. Addressing them is essential to drive sales and ensure a good purchase experience.
From the above, we can deduce that product damage, wrong shipments, and failure to meet delivery dates are among the most frequent pain points for consumers—points that correspond to logistics operations and are return causes that have been increasing between 2020 and 2021, which is an important point for e-commerce businesses to evaluate. Beyond the quality and information they provide, poor logistics can also affect brand reputation.
Logistics operations are extremely important in the growth of online stores and remain 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—one that allows you to fully delegate inventory, order preparation, and delivery while improving customer satisfaction and focusing on other important business areas such as product improvement and positioning—we share our 3PL Checklist. Download it, take notes, and evaluate each point. If your logistics provider does not enable or is not up to the level of stepped growth through a win-win relationship, it is not the best option.
As an essential point, you should start by hiring the services of a specialist in this field—a fulfillment provider. These have e-commerce as their core business and will have the technology and expertise to efficiently manage your logistics operation, unlike a 3PL focused on traditional retail. The needs, speed, and dynamism of e-commerce are different, and you must hire a provider that can meet these requirements.
Every day more Mexicans are aware of the benefits of online shopping. Acquiring products on the internet is increasingly part of people's daily lives, where the need for faster delivery intensifies. What is your order delivery time? How many errors do you record per month in shipment preparation? Do products get damaged during transport? Three important indicators you must measure and implement improvement actions for—otherwise, your return percentage will keep growing.
Security perception and 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 certain behaviors such as cloned card incidents and unrecognized charges decreasing during 2021.
Marketplace preferences
Pure players Amazon and Mercado Libre topped Mexican shoppers' purchase preferences during 2021, registering more than 60% of purchases in 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 Mexican e-commerce, continuing 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 e-commerce businesses, who every day must guarantee better service experiences, since there will not only be more shoppers, but more demanding and selective ones.
Read also: Marketplaces in Latin America: The Kings of Online Sales
Today more than ever, logistics acquires unprecedented value in e-commerce, where only those e-commerce businesses capable of satisfying customer delivery needs—in terms of times, delivery modalities, costs, returns, and traceability—will earn their preference.
Do not take this topic lightly or underestimate its importance. If you do not guarantee the efficiency of the entire operation, you will hardly achieve sustainable scalability over time.
Looking for a partner to boost your delivery process, fulfillment, and customer satisfaction? Don't hesitate to contact us—we are the best fulfillment center for e-commerce in Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil—just click here.
During 2021 at Cubbo:
* Our clients recorded 21% savings in operating costs
* 97.1% of products received were processed and ready to sell within 24 hours.
* We achieved 99.7% shipping fulfillment
* We recorded 99.9875% order preparation accuracy—that is, 1 error every 8,000 shipments.
* 60% of our deliveries in Mexico City were made the same day
* We completed nationwide deliveries in an average of 1.3 days
Information sources:
Online sales study, the Mexican digital consumer AMVO 2022
