In recent years, the online sales of e-commerce in Latin America have grown very fast. Among them, the e-commerce sales of Brazil, Mexico and Argentina are even more amazing. In 2015, they reached 59 billion U.S. dollars. Brazil is a Latin American country. The largest e-commerce market in the region, accounting for 42% of the market share in Latin America: Mexico is the second largest e-commerce market in Latin America, accounting for 15.6% of the market share in Latin America, and the third-ranked Argentina e-commerce market accounts for 14.6% of the market share in Latin America. % market share.
1. The “e-commerce giant” among the seven Portuguese-speaking countries – Brazil
Brazil is the only South American country among the seven Portuguese-speaking countries, and it is also the largest in Latin America. With the country’s advantage of more than 200 million people, Brazil has become the ninth largest e-commerce retail market in the world. Cross-border sellers who want to enter the Latin American market must not miss this country.
(1) Advantages of Brazil’s e-commerce development
1. Internet penetration ranks first in Latin America
In Latin America, Brazil ranks first in the number of Internet users . According to data released by Statista in October 2018, Brazil ranks fourth in the world with 119 million Internet users. As of January 2019, Brazil had 149.1 million Internet users, Mexico had 88 million Internet users, Argentina had 41.59 million Internet users, and Colombia had 34 million Internet users.
Brazilians also rank first among Latin American countries in terms of average time spent on the Internet, spending an average of 25.7 hours online per month, much higher than the average of 7.1 hours in Latin American countries.
Brazil’s urban population and wealthy classes have greater access to the Internet. 59% of Brazilian urban residents have access to the Internet, and 26% of rural residents have access to the Internet. 97% of households with household incomes above ten times the minimum wage have access to the Internet, while only 29% of households with household incomes just above the minimum wage have access to the Internet.
2. Mobile e-commerce has become a new market trend
In Brazil, e-commerce is definitely a very promising industry. A report released by E-Bit, a Brazilian online consumer behavior research company, shows that in 2016, Brazil’s e-commerce transaction volume was US$16.579 billion (approximately RMB 111.719 billion). The report predicts that in 2021, the annual growth rate of the country’s e-commerce transaction volume will reach 11.9%, and the market transaction volume will reach 29.06 billion US dollars (approximately RMB 195.849 billion). The rapid popularity of smartphones has provided a lot of opportunities for the development of Brazilian e-commerce. Big boost. In 2015, about 45% of Western Internet users made payments via smartphones, compared with only 21% in the same period in 2014. In the next few years, the Brazilian e-commerce market will still have large room for growth.
3. Local e-commerce dominates the market
Most of the top e-commerce platforms in Brazil adopt an online and offline integrated operation model. In 2018, Brazil had the largest traffic Among the top ten e-commerce websites, only Wal-Mart and Alibaba’s AliExpress are from companies outside Latin America, and the rest are local e-commerce companies in Brazil and Latin America. U.S. e-commerce giants eBay and Amazon are also paying great attention to the Brazilian market. However, due to constraints such as cultural differences and local service customer experience, most Brazilian consumers tend to shop on local e-commerce websites.
4. The number of local overseas shoppers has increased
In recent years, the number of overseas shoppers in Brazil has experienced explosive growth. 54% of Brazilian online shopping users shop from cross-border e-commerce platforms in other countries, and imported goods mainly come from the United States and China. In 2017, 22.4 million Brazilian consumers made cross-border purchases, with each consumer spending an average of US$36.8. Brazilian consumers choose cross-border shopping mainly because goods are cheaper. Usually local goods are three times more expensive than prices on international websites. For example, iPhones and game consoles in Brazil are the most expensive in the world. Moreover, the product types of international websites are also richer. Local consumers also like to purchase products from Chinese cross-border sellers. China’s most popular online shopping festival “Double Eleven” has also become a shopping festival in Brazil. They often buy Chinese clothing accessories, beauty and health products, home appliances, and electronics online. products and online game products, etc. In the past five years, Brazilians’ love for Chinese products has grown day by day. They feel that the quality of the products they buy exceeds their expectations, and they believe that Chinese products have more advantages in price and more modern designs.
If we carefully study the Brazilian e-commerce platform, we will find that the unit price of the products on the platform is quite high. The author took a few random pictures on the MercadoLibre website and the Alibaba website for comparison. You can see that the goods are purchased on Alibaba. A 10 yuan peeling and shredding tool can be sold for 80 to 120 yuan on the MercadoLibre website, and an electric drill priced at 50 to 100 yuan can be sold for more than 1,000 yuan. Therefore, Chinese small commodities are still “bargains” when they are sold in Latin America at ten times the price.
1 real is approximately equal to 1.7 yuan.
Diners Club is also available in Brazil. Local Brazilian credit cards Hipercard, Elo and Aura are also popular.
5. E-commerce infrastructure is gradually improving
Brazil’s weak infrastructure has brought huge challenges to the development of e-commerce. Brazil’s backbone logistics is relatively complete, but the conditions for the “last mile” are poor. Although there are supplements from global express delivery companies such as DHL, UPS, TNT, and FedEx, the Brazilian state-owned enterprise Postal Service is the only one. Generally speaking, Brazilian e-commerce logistics still has problems such as high prices, poor service, low efficiency, and many errors. It has brought huge obstacles to the development of the local e-commerce industry. In Brazil, 87% of e-commerce websites transport goods through the Brazilian Post. 36% of e-commerce websites choose to use professional express companies. These express companies generally have no restrictions on package size and can provide different packages based on delivery speed, price requirements, etc. Service, but often very expensive. The rise of regional logistics companies has had a great impact on the Brazilian logistics market. Although the market share is only 3%, due to its simple delivery procedures, e-commerce companies are able to provide “next day delivery” services to some areas. Compared with national logistics companies with complicated procedures, freight costs are reduced by 20 to 40%.
(2) E-commerce platforms that have sprung up like mushrooms after a rain
Compared with other regions in Latin America, Brazil has slightly more e-commerce platforms, such as Daiti (Brazil’s largest fashion e-commerce website) ), Peixe Urbano (Brazil’s largest group buying website), OLX (Brazilian version of “58 City”), MercadoLibre (Brazilian version of “Taobao”), Buscape (Brazil’s largest price comparison website). In addition, there are online shopping websites commonly used by Brazilian consumers such as AliExpress, Americanas, Bomnegocio, Submarino, NetshoesAdmngronline, and Walmart.
(3) Obstacles to the development of e-commerce in Brazil.