In Mexiko, dem Land mit der weltweit höchsten Wachstumsrate im E - Commerce, kämpft die chinesische Cross - Border - Truppe hart gegen die Einheimischen | Auslandserkundung New Land

Text by | Hu Yiting

Edited by | Yuan Silai

Mexico is tens of thousands of kilometers away from China. Taking the relatively few available flights, a direct flight from Shenzhen Airport to Mexico City, the capital, takes 16 hours. It is one of the countries farthest from China.

Mexico has a developed agricultural sector. The abundant sunlight makes the central plateau the main corn - growing area. Heading south, the mountainous terrain and fertile volcanic soil in states like Chiapas have given rise to what was once the world's fourth - largest coffee producer, and a mature coffee industry has gradually taken root.

Meanwhile, due to geographical and demographic advantages, the western and northern parts of Mexico have attracted a large number of internationally renowned automobile brands. Cities like Monterrey and Guadalajara have taken on automobile orders for global export, propping up Mexico's heavy industry.

In contrast, Mexico's light industry is relatively less prominent. Products such as clothing with simple styles and basic designs, and components with insufficient precision and performance struggle to meet local demand, and the supply relies heavily on imports.

In recent years, with the increasing penetration of the Internet, Mexico's e - commerce market has been growing steadily. Data from the Mexican Online Sales Association shows that in 2023, Mexico's e - commerce sales reached 658 billion pesos (approximately $37 billion), a year - on - year increase of 24.6%, ranking first in the world in terms of growth rate.

On February 13 this year, TikTok officially launched its Mexican site and invited the first batch of sellers to join. Mexico has become one of the emerging markets where China's four cross - border e - commerce powerhouses (SHEIN, Temu, TikTok Shop, and AliExpress) have all set foot.

Sellers use these platforms to sell products such as clothing and accessories, household items, toys and stationery, and 3C electronics to the local market, making Mexico a new option for development at a time when there is intense price competition in Southeast Asia and uncertain policies in the United States.

However, Mexico is far from a simple market. One may find it difficult to make any headway without speaking Spanish. Issues such as lost packages and inadequate staff training have become the norm. Even experienced sellers find it a bit tough, and it may be even more challenging for novice sellers. But in the current context of intensifying global e - commerce competition and unstable geopolitical situations, entering the Mexican market has become a more challenging yet unavoidable choice.

The Game between Two Giants and New Forces

As early as 2023, Mexico's e - commerce market witnessed an explosive growth that left a deep impression on sellers.

Zhao Dezhu, a seller mainly engaged in personal care products, has been supplying goods to Mexican sellers for many years and has now established his own brand. He recalled, "From July 2020 to the end of 2022, goods couldn't reach the United States, and the supply to Mexico was also disrupted! In fact, the whole world was short of Chinese products. As long as you had goods in the United States and Mexico, you could sell them."

Even though the COVID - 19 pandemic affected the global market, Mexico emerged as the country with the fastest - growing e - commerce sector in the world, making it one of the few hotspots at present.

Once sellers enter the Mexican market, they will first notice two giants dominating the landscape: Mercado Libre and Amazon.

Mercado Libre was founded in Argentina in 1999 and entered the Mexican market the same year. Official data shows that in 2023, Mercado Libre's GMV in Mexico exceeded $20 billion, with a market share of over 50%. It has more than 35 million active users and over 100 million product listings.

Mercado Libre's homepage, source: official website

As an established e - commerce platform, Mercado Libre may experience rapid growth in the trend of deepening e - commerce penetration. Zhao Dezhu told 36Kr that Mercado Libre's focus this year is on the full - service model, aiming for a five - fold increase in growth.

Jia Yunhan, the co - founder of "Chuhai Jiang", an overseas competition analysis platform, which recently held a seller event targeting the Latin American market, told 36Kr that judging from last year's trend, the competition on Mercado Libre is expected to be extremely fierce this year.

Besides Mercado Libre, Amazon is the largest e - commerce platform in Mexico. A report released by the Mexican antitrust regulator Cofece in 2024 shows that Mercado Libre and Amazon together account for 85% of the local market share.

Since entering the Mexican market in 2015, Amazon has invested a total of 110 billion pesos (approximately $5.516 billion) in various fields such as logistics and construction. Currently, more than 27,000 Mexican sellers are conducting sales on the platform, offering over 5 million types of products.

This means that there is limited space for Chinese e - commerce platforms such as Temu and SHEIN. In response, they have introduced strategies such as consumer subsidies and quick returns on small orders, which they are good at, to the Mexican market.

In 2021, SHEIN opened a pop - up store in Mexico City. Then, along with Temu, it officially entered the local market in 2023. A report from the securities firm Bursátil Mexicano shows that in April 2024, Temu had 15 million monthly active users in Mexico, while SHEIN had 10.1 million.

In comparison, SHEIN may have made earlier and more in - depth arrangements in Mexico, but Temu's growth rate is hard to resist.

The Brazilian technology media NEOFEED reported that Xu Yangtian personally inspected the clothing supply chain in Brazil at the end of 2021 to assess the feasibility of producing clothing in Brazil and signed confidentiality agreements with two factories.

In neighboring Mexico, relevant SHEIN personnel said that local sellers have entered the platform to conduct sales.

It is understood that the four e - commerce powerhouses are targeting the young population in Mexico who value cost - effectiveness and are not very sensitive to logistics timeliness. Data from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography of Mexico shows that as early as 2020, Mexico's total population exceeded 126 million, with an average age of 29.

For platforms like Temu and SHEIN, even though there are giants in the market, there is still room for growth in Mexico, making it a fertile ground with countless possibilities.

Escalation of Local Competition

Compared with Temu and SHEIN, TikTok Shop seems to be half a step behind.

In July 2024, according to Mexican business news, TikTok Shop was ready to launch in Mexico, but the plan was postponed due to the instability of its home market in the United States.

Jia Yunhan told 36Kr that although TikTok Shop officially launched on February 13, the data backend of Chuhai Jiang could already see local products on the shelves on February 7, and users with a large number of local fans received notifications.

The first batch of stores launched in Mexico on TikTok Shop were all from top - tier sellers invited by TikTok Shop, covering categories such as 3C electronics, beauty and personal care. Different from Temu's aggressive consumer subsidy strategy, TikTok Shop chooses to provide subsidies for the entire process of sending samples to influencers for sellers, including the cost of samples and shipping fees.

“TikTok Shop invited less than 100 sellers in the first batch. It happened to be the Spring Festival in China at that time. After the store backend was opened, big sellers could see the influencers and were busy establishing connections with them and asking them to promote products. By early February, the best - performing big sellers had sent out perhaps 1,000 - 2,000 samples,” Jia Yunhan told 36Kr.

Launch of the Mexican site, source: TikTok Shop

Now, TikTok Shop has been launched in Mexico for over a month. Since only sellers with local business licenses and legal representatives or those with the ability to stock goods locally can enter the platform, the number of SKUs and stores on TikTok Shop is less than that of platforms like Temu and SHEIN.

Data from Chuhai Jiang shows that in early March, the daily turnover of TikTok Shop's Mexican site was about hundreds of thousands of dollars, with an average order value of nearly $12, while the average order value in the US market on the same day was about $20. Currently, the best - selling categories on TikTok Shop are beauty and personal care, fashion clothing, and 3C electronics.

TikTok Shop has an insufficient supply of local goods, but there is no shortage of goods in Mexico.

Offline retail in Mexico, source: Pexels

At the end of 2024, the Mexican government conducted a large - scale crackdown on counterfeit goods in the local Yiwu Commodity City. Even those white - label sellers who were not affected were still panicked and gradually turned to the online market.

Jia Yunhan told 36Kr, “People in the Yiwu Commodity City want to transfer their offline inventory to the online market to clear their stocks. But since they don't have the ability to do content - based e - commerce like TikTok, they are selling their products at very low prices on Mercado Libre. The competition in the shelf - style e - commerce market in Mexico will become extremely fierce this year.”

Although the competition among platforms is intense, they still can't solve the macro - level problems. To this day, Mexico's infrastructure is still not well - developed, and the risk of localization for sellers is quite high.

Zhao Dezhu suffered losses. “In August 2024, we sent three containers of goods to Mexico, and one container hasn't been found yet, and the logistics company doesn't compensate. The problem of lost goods in Mexico hasn't improved in recent years,” he told 36Kr.

Even if the goods reach the port, the warehousing problem is not easy to solve. Zhao Dezhu said that currently, unlike in the United States and other markets with a mature e - commerce foundation, it is still inconvenient to transfer goods between multiple platforms in Mexico, and it is also very difficult for sellers to build their own warehouses locally. E - commerce platforms may adopt the strategy of building industrial parks in the local area.

Risks and opportunities often go hand in hand. Sellers who are striving to enter the Mexican market firmly believe that it is a blue ocean. But for platforms like Temu, SHEIN, and TikTok Shop, this is just one stop in their global conquest. In emerging markets, they will become strong competitors against local giants.