In a bustling market in Mexico City, a small shopkeeper is holding his cell phone to place a quick order - however, he is not using those familiar B2C shopping platforms, but the latest B2B channel launched by Mercado. This is actually a microcosm of Mercado's ambitious entry into the B2B market.
Just recently, Mercado also acquired a local pharmacy in Brazil, actively laying out online drug sales. However, this expansion is also facing a lot of challenges. E-commerce platforms like SellThru, Shopee, Amazon and TEMU are increasing their investment in the Latin American market and vigorously implementing localized operations. At the same time, local regulatory policies are becoming more and more stringent.
It can be predicted that the next competition in Latin American e-commerce will no longer be just a fight for low prices, but will turn into a full-scale competition around ecological construction and compliance operations.
01, Mektor's B2B Ambition and Growth Anxiety
At first glance, as the "big brother" of Latin American e-commerce, Mercado seems to have steadily occupied the market. But at a closer look, it has recently launched B2B business and acquired pharmacies - there are actually deeper intentions behind this.
Why did Mercado suddenly start a B2B business? It's not just following the trend, it's more because it has internal and external pressures that compel it to take this step.
People usually focus on the C-suite market, but in reality, the B2B e-commerce market is much larger than B2C. According to a report published by the Inter-American Development Bank in 2023 (derived from 2022 data), the size of B2B e-commerce in Latin America has already reached $381 billion, which is almost 3.2 times the size of the B2C market at that time (about $119 billion).
And in Latin America, the average amount of a B2B order is usually 10 times, if not hundreds of times, the amount of a B2C order, such as an order for a shipment of industrial equipment that could be tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Now that more and more SMEs are getting digitalized and companies are more willing to purchase things online from each other, from raw materials and machinery and equipment to office supplies and cleaning materials, there is still a lot of potential for B2B transactions.
It is understood that the B2B business launched by Mektor is mainly for enterprises to provide wholesale procurement services. Enterprises just need to register with their tax ID numbers to enjoy wholesale prices, exclusive shipping rates, automatic tax calculation and other benefits. The main categories covered include office supplies, electronic products, food and beverages, cleaning supplies, furniture and auto parts, among others.
Roberta Donato, Vice President of Marketing at Mercado, said that by relying on their platform ecosystem advantage, they are able to offer up to 50% purchase discounts to their corporate customers, making corporate purchasing more hassle-free.
Indeed.Once the B2B business establishes a stable supply relationship, customer stickiness will be much higher than the C-end, and it is easier to form a barrier to long-term cooperation.Mektor is now cutting into this track to get ahead of the game and open up the whole chain of services from individual consumers to corporate purchasing.
On the other hand, Mercado is really feeling the pressure to perform. in the second quarter of 2025, Mercado took in $6.8 billion in revenue, an increase of about 341 TP3T year-on-year, but net income was $523 million, a decline of about 1.51 TP3T.
Behind the shrinking profits are increased market competition and rising user acquisition costs.So the layout of B2B becomes a key step for Mercado to find new growth points.
What's more, the competitors are not idle. Like TikTok Shop just launched in Mexico soon after, relying on the short video and social e-commerce traffic advantage, attracted a lot of users.
Seeing the micro-knowledge, the above table in September Mexico site as an example, we can see that there are obvious differences in the performance of the traffic of the various platforms. Merkur and Amazon together occupy the absolute dominant position in the Mexican e-commerce market, competition is fierce; Shopee's main market in Latin America is in Brazil; TikTok Shop Mexico is in its infancy, relying on social platforms with greater potential, and the layout of the layout of the Brazilian has not yet been officially announced and disclosed.
Now that all platforms are desperately trying to grab the market, if Mektor only holds on to the C-end business, the moat will be slowly chewed through sooner or later. But it also has to solve a problem:How to convert existing C-side traffic into B-side customers? This may require it to make further adjustments in its organizational structure and technical systems.
02. Latin American melee, giants stick it to the man
Latin American e-commerce market is now particularly lively, but this piece of cake looks fragrant, want to eat into the mouth but not easy.
Even a global player like Amazon has never really been able to open up in Latin America. The problem is rooted in the roots: the infrastructure is not harmonized across the region, logistics costs are too high, and many consumers don't have bank accounts.
And the biggest headache for Mercado now is the challenge from Shopee. In Brazil, Shopee is low prices, interactive games, free shipping and low commissions - a set of moves that Brazilian consumers simply can not carry.
More fierce is that Shopee also built its own logistics, forcing the United States more than had to keep up, once the threshold of the package are adjusted down. This is not a small fight, this is a real price war.
The Q2 2025 earnings report released by Sea Limited, Shopee's parent company, had revealed that Shopee's Brazilian order volume has surpassed that of Mercado to become the No. 1 e-commerce platform in the Brazilian market in terms of order volume.
But Shopee's ambition is not only to sell goods. It is behind the Sea Group in Southeast Asia has long been the "e-commerce + payment" this model run through, its SeaMoney in the second quarter of this year, revenue soared 70%. although the financial business in Latin America is not as good as Mercado's Mercado Pago, but once it is copied the Southeast Asian set of Mercado's financial advantage will be hanging by a thread.
Some analysts point out the key:"Now Latin American e-commerce is no longer competing for users, but the entire consumption process of users from 'shopping' to 'buying' to 'receiving' -- not even one less ring."
In addition, TEMU is also a variable that can not be ignored. It relies on China's supply chain, to Latin American consumers wildly sell ultra-low-cost goods, users rose rapidly, but its local logistics and payment have not kept up, it looks more like a "stirring the pot", is not really able to compete in the long term rivals.
It is worth mentioning that, in order to better develop in Latin America, Speed Selling has launched a "tariff calculator", which can show the estimated tax when checking out, so that users will not be "surprised" when they get the parcels. It also cooperates with local customs clearance companies to optimize logistics and reduce parcel customs clearance.
Even TikTok Shop in Mexico is also playing in the wind, many merchants rely on "content + selling goods" two-legged way, sales have soared.
For example, the brand Wavytalk, the success in the United States to Mexico, found that the local women have a great demand for hair styling, so they rely on a curling comb for both curling and straightening to open up the market. They reused Spanish language material, accurate streaming to start with, and with the videos of celebrities and the platform's big promotion traffic, this curling comb, which sells for nearly $40, ended up selling 30,000 units, with a GMV of nearly $1 million.
03、Regulation tightening, compliance into a life and death line
Latin American market is now not only e-commerce platforms "all want to grab the land", but also become the regulator "staring very tight" place.
Over the past few years, Latin American countries have been introducing new regulations on e-commerce. Countries like Mexico and Brazil, for example, have begun to strengthen data privacy protection, requiring platforms to store user data locally. Tax issues are also becoming more complex, and many cross-border e-commerce companies have been penalized for not handling tariffs and VAT properly.
The Brazilian Tax Administration also came out with new rules that all cross-border packages must be declared in advance, and non-compliant platforms are fined R$10,000 per day; the new Consumer Protection Law, also implemented in Mexico from 2024, stipulates that e-commerce platforms also have to be responsible for the behavior of their sellers, which led to platforms like Meccadot to clear out a lot of sellers.
Someone made an analogy:"Doing business in Latin America is like walking a tightrope, stepping on a mine if you're not careful."
For example, Mercado's acquisition of pharmacies and foray into pharmaceutical e-commerce ran into strict medical regulation - government licenses are required to sell drugs, and online prescription reviews must be compliant.
In Brazil, online pharmacies must be staffed by a team of licensed pharmacists, and selling prescription drugs has to be verified against public healthcare system data. These requirements make the threshold for being a pharmaceutical e-commerce company much higher than a regular e-commerce company.
Additionally, Amazon has been investigated in Brazil for data localization issues, and Shopee and TEMU have been accused of evading customs duties on several occasions, drawing the attention of regulators.
In 2024, the Brazilian Consumer Protection Agency issued fines totaling R$230 million to cross-border e-commerce platforms such as SHEIN and Shopee, mainly on the grounds that the platforms acquiesced in or even helped sellers evade taxes by under-declaring customs, among other things.
These challenges not only push up operating costs, but also test the platform's ability to adapt locally. Moreover, regulation will only get tighter in the future.
Brazil is discussing an "e-commerce platform liability law" that would require platforms to take more responsibility for the behavior of sellers; Mexico has stepped up its antitrust scrutiny to prevent the market from being monopolized; and Chile and Colombia are preparing to introduce regulatory frameworks similar to the European Union's Digital Services Act, which would require platforms to set up content audits and risk-control mechanisms.
Therefore, to do business in Latin America, it is not enough to have traffic, but also to have the "compliance gene".
It is estimated that the annual cost spent on compliance by the head platform has accounted for 3%-5% of the total revenue and is still rising. Companies that can not adapt to this change, even if the business model is good, may fall in the regulatory storm.
04. Conclusion
The competition of Latin American e-commerce has entered the deep water. Merkur is mostly seeking breakthroughs through B2B and diversification, but in the face of Shopee's aggressive expansion, Amazon's protracted battle and TEMU's disruptive play, the war is far from over ......
