LatAm List – North America’s e-commerce leader has been eyeing the Latin American market for the past year. With expansions in Chile, Mexico, and Colombia, it seems that Amazon‘s leap into the Latin American market is inevitable.
However, the Amazon will not be alone in competing for the world’s fastest-growing e-commerce market. Local market leader, Mercado Libre, has been improving payments and creating customer loyalty and free shipping programs that they hope will fend off Amazon’s advance. Chilean retail chain, Falabella, acquired Mexican e-commerce startup, Linio, to stay competitive online. Walmart did the same with Cornershop.
While Amazon has not revealed expansion plans, their recent actions indicate an interest in tackling LatAm. Latin America offers a large, untapped market opportunity for an e-commerce giant like Amazon, since Latin Americans currently register the lowest level of online purchasing per person per year in the world: just 9.2. Asia has 22.1, North America 19, and Africa 11.
Amazon will have to solve online payments issues that other e-commerce retailers have faced when trying to serve an underbanked market like Latin America.
Read the entire analysis in Fortune Español.
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