Digital marketing platforms exhibit varying degrees of e-commerce maturity across the region's countries

Last revised on: 09/02/2024

Online digital marketing platforms, or marketplaces, are websites that facilitate commerce in a virtual space where sellers can offer their products or services and buyers can search, compare, and purchase what they need, thanks to tools for communication, payment processing, and logistics.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, due to preventive behavior, social distancing, and mobility restrictions, companies and consumers turned to e-commerce to buy and sell goods and services, leading to explosive growth in this type of website.

A study conducted by ECLAC highlights this phenomenon and the landscape of e-commerce platforms in the 33 countries of the region between 2019 and 2022. Approximately 2,900 websites belonging to around 900 B2C e-commerce platforms were analyzed. This study only considered local platforms where multiple sellers and buyers of products operate, both for buying and selling and for placing classified ads. In other words, only platforms with a specific website dedicated to the country (e.g., mercadolibre.com.ar, amazon.mx) or a specific subdomain (e.g., cardealpage.com/chile, coches-usados.net/Colombia) were considered. Online stores of a single brand or company were not considered, nor were sites focused on service provision, nor global platforms that do not focus on a particular country, such as Amazon.com, Aliexpress.com, or Etsy.com. This analysis allowed the identification of relevant markets for these platforms using website traffic as an indicator of their level of dynamism.

The results showed a boom in these platforms during the pandemic, both in terms of the emergence of websites and in terms of website traffic. Total traffic between 2019 and 2020 grew by 25%, mainly concentrated on existing sites, with a slowdown observed between 2020 and 2021 and a slight decrease between 2021 and 2022. The number of websites grew by 5.3% between 2019 and 2020.

Evolution of web traffic to platforms by the number of websites, Latin America and the Caribbean, 2019-2022

(Quantity of visits, quantity of websites)

Source: The Latin America and Caribbean Marketplace Explorer (LACME).

Analyzing traffic by country, it is observed that almost all traffic to e-commerce platforms (97%) is directed to Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Peru, the main economies of the region.

Web traffic on marketplaces, Latin America and the Caribbean countries, 2022

(Quantity of visits)

Source: The Latin America and Caribbean Marketplace Explorer (LACME).

The distribution of sites correlates with the traffic trend, with over 45% of websites in these six markets. Site concentration is lower than traffic, indicating that there is a diversity of platforms in different countries, but the traffic to these sites is lower.

Distribution of websites, Latin America and the Caribbean, 2022

(In percentages of the total marketplaces in Latin America and the Caribbean)

Source: The Latin America and Caribbean Marketplace Explorer (LACME).

Brazil leads in site ownership with 12.5% of the total (359 sites), followed by Mexico with 8.2% (235 sites). It is important to note that this business model is characterized by economies of scale, so it would not be expected to have a large number of sites in all countries, especially in those with smaller markets.

83% of websites are non-transactional, meaning they do not allow users to make online purchases. Most sites are classified ad sites (77%), where users post ads for the sale or search of products without the ability to make online payments. They are followed in popularity by e-commerce platforms or online shopping malls, with 16%, and auction and coupon sites, with 2.8% and 2.6%, respectively. Despite the lower number of sites, transactional sites account for over 80% of traffic, mostly in online shopping malls.

Distribution of the quantity of marketplaces and traffic visits by category, Latin America and the Caribbean, 2022

(In percentages)

Source: The Latin America and Caribbean Marketplace Explorer (LACME).

The most visited platforms in the region are Mercado Libre, leading with a 30.4% share, followed by Amazon, whose combined presence in Brazil and Mexico totals 8.3%. The other platforms have considerably lower participation, underscoring the concentration of traffic on a few main platforms.

Distribution of visitor traffic for the top 15 marketplaces, Latin America and the Caribbean, 2022

Source: The Latin America and Caribbean Marketplace Explorer (LACME).

The geographic focus of marketplaces is related to the reach and origin of the platforms. A globally focused marketplace is international but focuses on a particular country through a specific URL or subdomain, as is the case with Spain's Trovit site, which has adaptations for different countries. National focus refers to sites that originate and operate within the same country. Finally, intracontinental focus encompasses regional origin websites that ship within the countries of that region, as Mercado Libre does.

Geographic focus of marketplaces, Latin America and the Caribbean, 2022

(Quantity of marketplace websites)

Source: The Latin America and Caribbean Marketplace Explorer (LACME).

In Latin America and the Caribbean, there is a high presence of marketplaces with a global orientation (63.4%). 25% focus on the national scope, and 11% orient their transactions within the continent. This shows the great opportunity to expand e-commerce regionally. The fact that nearly 60% of platforms do not admit foreign sellers indicates the existence of barriers and difficulties that limit the development of e-commerce.