The news
Mexico's Federal Economic Competition Commission (Cofece) reports that more than 85% of the country's e-commerce is concentrated in just two marketplaces: Amazon and Mercado Libre, as reported by OneDigital. Put another way: of every 100 pesos spent online in Mexico, more than 85 flow through one of those two platforms.
The figure lands on a market that keeps growing fast. AMVO's 2026 Online Sales Study reports Mexican retail e-commerce hit 941 billion pesos in 2025 (+19.2% year over year), with 77.2 million online buyers, now ranking 8th worldwide in online retail sales. The pie is huge and growing — but it's served by very few hands.
Why concentration is a risk, not just a data point
When 85% of demand lives on platforms you don't control, your business depends on rules that can change without warning: commissions, Buy Box policies, Full storage fees, account suspensions, algorithm shifts. Many brands find this out too late — once 100% of their inventory and sales is tied to a single channel.
It's not that marketplaces are bad; they're a powerful acquisition engine. The problem is total dependence. AMVO confirms the underlying shift: Pure Players (brands selling through their own channel) grew +23.7% in 2025, versus +14.9% for Brick & Click models. Mexican shoppers already buy direct from brands when the experience is good.
For foreign brands entering Mexico
If you're sizing up Mexico from abroad, this cuts both ways. Yes, the marketplaces are the fastest way to reach demand — but launching only on Amazon or Mercado Libre means building your Mexican business on rented land. The brands that last set up a channel-agnostic operation from day one, so a marketplace is one door into the market, not the whole house.
The play: sell on the marketplace and on your own
The answer isn't to abandon Amazon or Mercado Libre. It's to stop depending on just one:
| Scenario | What you control | What you risk |
|---|---|---|
| Marketplace only | Almost none of the operation | Commissions, rules, and your customer relationship |
| Own store only | Everything | You give up the 85% of demand that lives on marketplaces |
| Hybrid (omnichannel) | Price, brand, customer data, and logistics | The challenge is serving every channel without splitting inventory |
The bottleneck of the hybrid model is always the same: logistics. Keeping separate stock for Mercado Libre, your Shopify, TikTok Shop, and wholesale is a recipe for running out in one channel while sitting on excess in another.
One inventory for every channel
This is where an operator comes in. A fulfillment service keeps one pool of inventory serving all your channels from the same warehouse: the same unit ships today to a customer from your store, tomorrow to a Mercado Libre order, and the day after to a wholesale pickup — without you touching a box.
A 3PL in Mexico gives you three things concentration takes away:
- Channel independence. If commissions rise or rules change tomorrow, you shift more volume to your own channel without rebuilding your operation.
- Your customer data. Selling direct means knowing who buys from you — something the marketplace never hands over.
- Real elasticity. A spike in one channel doesn't sink the others, because the inventory is shared.
If you sell on marketplaces, you can combine both: part of your stock inside Full to win the badge on the platform, and the rest with the operator serving everything else. We break it down in Mercado Libre fulfillment in Mexico, and our marketplace prep service handles the labeling and inbound shipments the platform requires.
The bigger read
Two players concentrating 85% of the market isn't a signal to give up — it's a signal not to put all your eggs in their basket. The brands that build something durable in Mexican e-commerce are the ones that use marketplaces as one of their channels, not as their entire business.
And the requirement to pull that off isn't expensive tech or your own warehouse: it's having your inventory in one place, accurately counted, and ready to ship wherever your customer is. That's exactly what you hire a logistics operator for.