A joint report released Tuesday by consulting firm Endeavor and e-commerce operator MercadoLibre projects Latin American online retail revenues will reach $215.31 billion in 2026, expanding at a pace 1.5 times faster than the global average.
The study highlights a concentrated regional market: Argentina, Brazil and Mexico together account for nearly 85% of the region's e-commerce sales in 2025. That trio remains the primary engine of online commerce across Latin America, according to the report.
Mobile devices dominate the shopping experience in the region, with 84% of online purchases completed on smartphones. Despite the heavy use of mobile channels, loyalty to individual platforms appears tenuous: the report finds that nearly half of shoppers would stop using a platform after a single negative interaction.
Consumers identified delivery delays and problems with returns as among their most significant pain points. In addition, clarity around pricing and policies matters strongly to buyers - roughly three-quarters of respondents rated transparency on those issues as very important to their shopping choices. By contrast, only about one-third of shoppers described personalization as very important.
Those patterns lead the authors to conclude that some e-commerce operators may be emphasizing recommendation engines and personalization technologies while not delivering consistently on fundamental service execution, such as timely delivery and straightforward return processes.
Beyond marketplace sales, the report says marketplaces are just "the tip of the iceberg" for firms that sell online. Many of these companies are expanding their activities into adjacent businesses - including payment processing, consumer credit offerings and logistics operations - as they seek to capture additional revenue and control more of the customer experience.
Implications and market context
The findings underscore several operational and strategic priorities for e-commerce players in the region: shoring up fulfillment and returns capabilities, ensuring transparent pricing and policy communication, and evaluating the balance between investments in personalization and in core execution. The expansion into payments, credit and logistics may shift competitive dynamics across payments providers, lenders that serve online consumers, and third-party logistics providers.