Mercado Libre maintains confidence in Mexico while it continues to grow

“Today, the macroeconomic context is complex for many companies, because they stopped funding and started with layoffs, but in Mercado Libre the structure will be maintained,” says Caballero, who also highlights the hiring of 5,000 people in Argentina, in addition to that they will continue to be optimistic with Mexico and Latin America.

The challenge of returning to physical stores

According to the global report on consumer habits in e-commerce, prepared by SOTI, in Mexico people are returning to physical stores progressively and for this year it is expected that 40% of consumers will have a greater intention to purchase products in person.

Michell Escutia, commercial director of SOTI in Latin America, pointed out that this is due to a cultural aspect of Mexicans, since they tend to be more attracted to physical stores because they can touch the materials of the products or try them before buying them.

Despite this, Mercado Libre gained a 41% market share in Mexico. Caballero clarifies that they had the hypothesis that when the world opened up, e-commerce was going to lose market share or register a growth rate lower than in the pre-pandemic era, but this was not the case.

They even hope to take advantage of the constant adoption of the digital channel, since in 2022, national e-commerce reached a value of 528,000 million pesos, that is, an increase of 23% compared to the previous year.