Country Profile: The Guide to Ecommerce
in Mexico

Ecommerce in Mexico: A Market Overview

Mexico is positioned among the top five countries in the world in terms of ecommerce retail growth rate.

Latin America has emerged as a booming market for ecommerce. Mexico, in particular, had an internet penetration rate of 83.2% at the start of 2024. 

Mexico is expected to play a big role in that expansion.

With a population of 130.2 million and a GDP of US$1.4 trillion, Mexico is the 15th largest economy in the world. It’s also the second-largest ecommerce market in Latin America after Brazil, bringing in 4% of the country’s GDP. Ecommerce in Mexico is anticipated to grow by 33% between 2023 and 2026, reaching sales of US$176.8 billion by 2025.

What’s making Mexico such a booming opportunity for ecommerce? There’s a confluence of factors.

Mexicans are becoming even more mobile and social

Mobile penetration in Mexico has been high for many years, but initially, they didn’t trust their devices enough to make transactions. 

Since then, we’ve seen a tide change. In Mexico, mobile connections are at an all-time high (97.3% of the population) and today’s online consumer defaults to mobile purchasing — over 60% shop on mobile. 

Mexico is a young country, with a median age of 30, so it might be unsurprising that social media is quickly becoming the next ecommerce frontier. Almost all consumers (97%) now rely on the internet or social networks to make purchasing decisions and scour for the best products and deals – even if they eventually buy in-store. 

Cross-border ecommerce to and from Mexico is increasing

Before the pandemic changed the industry forever, cross-border ecommerce purchases were predominantly made by Mexican consumers who were buying products in other countries — primarily the United States. 

However, as Mexico has grown as an ecommerce presence in its own right, more international consumers are buying from Latin American sites like Mexico. 

Mexican consumers are becoming more sophisticated

Mexican consumers are also becoming increasingly savvy with their purchases, with more options than ever to buy. This means if ecommerce businesses want to truly compete, they need to offer superior CX and be extra-cautious of falling into the false declines trap that currently plagues the entire LATAM region.

Let’s take a look at what Mexican consumers are buying online.

Types of Online Markets in Mexico

Mexican consumers increased their online spending during the pandemic, and their online shopping spending is still on the rise. Our original research shows that 68% of Mexican consumers increased their average online spending in the last year. 

Top categories

According to AMI, Mexican ecommerce customers say they’re most likely to shop online in the following categories:

• Food Delivery
• Fashion & Luxury Goods
• Beauty Supplies & Personal Care
• Toys
• Consumer Electronics, including cell phones and accessories
• Books, Magazines, Music & Art
• Home Goods, including household cleaning products and household appliances
• Sporting Goods & Apparel

These categories are largely consistent across generations, except in the realm of clothing. When looking at Gen Z and millennials, fashion and luxury goods ecommerce sales jump considerably.

The biggest rise in ecommerce purchases comes from Mexico’s desire to make shopping for the basic necessities cheaper and more convenient.

Surging demand for food and delivery ecommerce 

Getting food and groceries delivered is a habit that many gained during the pandemic, and it remains a huge opportunity for ecommerce retailers. Statista projects US$9.22 billion in revenue for online food delivery in Mexico in 2024, which will grow by more than 14% annually until 2029. The grocery delivery market is expected to deliver US$6.49 billion in earnings in 2024.

Not only are Mexican consumers increasingly using food and delivery ecommerce sites – in 2023, 37% of buyers said they preferred to buy drinks in ecommerce stores over brick and mortar, and 34% preferred to purchase meals online.

Convenience is a crucial enticer for consumers: According to Mexico Business News, 65% of Mexicans ordered takeaway food up to three times a week using delivery apps. 

Social media commerce also represents a large piece of the food delivery pie of possibility in Mexico, particularly in last-mile areas. Using WhatsApp or Facebook to triage orders benefits the retailers who want to circumvent delivery apps and consumers who still prefer the safety of using offline payment methods.

Top ecommerce sites

The top ecommerce sites in Mexico are (based on estimated monthly traffic):

• Amazon Mexico, the ecommerce giant’s Mexican presence.
• Mercado Libre Mexico, a general online marketplace for the Latin America region.
• AliExpress, the Chinese-based Amazon competitor.
• Walmart Mexico, the American retailer’s Mexican site.
• Liverpool, a retail company that operates a chain of department stores in Mexico.

Mexican Consumer Attitudes & Behaviors

Mexican consumers are avid ecommerce shoppers and share particular attitudes about their online shopping — attitudes that ecommerce businesses will need to be aware of.

Mobile commerce adoption is high

In 2023, 79% of ecommerce purchases in Mexico were made with a mobile device — up 7% from 2021 — and 21% made purchases with a desktop. When we look at the devices Mexican consumers prefer to use, the numbers skew strongly toward smartphones and laptops:

• 98% of Mexican online shoppers use smartphones.
• 70% of Mexican online shoppers use laptops.
• 37% of Mexican online shoppers use desktops.
• 35% of Mexican online shoppers use tablets.

Mexicans are big social media consumers

Social media is widely used in Mexico, so much so that social commerce — also known as conversational commerce — is expected to account for 40% of all ecommerce sales in Mexico by 2025. This creates opportunities for social advertising and ecommerce businesses.

Here’s a breakdown of the social media channels Mexicans use most often and the ad reach opportunity for each, according to a 2024 Data Portal report:

• 93% of Mexican internet users use WhatsApp. 
• Facebook accounts for 93.4% of users, with an ad reach of 70% of the country’s total population.
• Facebook Messenger users make up 80.5% of users, and the platform has an ad reach of 45.6% of the country’s total population.
• Instagram users account for 79.1% of users, and its ads reach 34.8% of the country’s total population.
• TikTok is also popular in Mexico, with 70.4% of users and an ad reach of 69.1%.
• Twitter users make up 18% of users, and the platform has an ad reach of 4.8% of the country’s total population.

Payment methods in Mexico run the gamut

Credit and debit cards remain the top payment methods used by consumers in Mexico when they shop online. Digital wallets such as PayPal come in second, and cash-based payment methods such as OXXO are also popular. 

The FIS Global Payment Report ranks the most common payment methods for Mexican ecommerce shopping in 2023 as:

1. Credit card (33%) 
2. Digital wallet (28%) 
3. Debit cards and prepaid cards (22%) 
4. Bank transfer (6%) 
5. Post-pay (7%)
6. Cash on delivery (2%)
7. Other (8%) 

This marks a significant shift from just a few years ago when Mexicans considered cash-on-delivery to be the safest type of payment and most popular. It’s a testament to how quickly the Mexican ecommerce market has caught up with the United States and Canada.

What Keeps Mexican Consumers Shopping Online

While credit cards are now the norm for ecommerce payment, the risks of online safety continue to be top-of-mind for consumers. The potential for online scams and being unsure if an online store is legitimate are the top reasons why consumers are deterred from online purchases. Still, more consumers think that ecommerce's benefits, like convenience, price and selection, outweigh the risks. 

What makes Mexican consumers abandon their carts

With a wealth of ecommerce sites to choose from, savvy ecommerce retailers can learn to improve their site’s cart abandonment rates. ClearSale’s original research of global consumers shows that high prices and slow shipping are the top reason why Mexican online shoppers abandon purchases (27%), while a lack of trust to supply credit card information on the site is a similar deterrent (21%). 

Globally, baby boomers and Gen X are almost tied for putting price at the top of their list for where they shop, according to our latest 2023-2024 Consumer Attitudes study.

Ecommerce Fraud in Mexico

Unfortunately, Mexicans’ fears of online scammers are well-founded. As the Mexican ecommerce market expands, so has the attention of internet fraudsters worldwide. A massive increase in ecommerce fraud resulted in drastic action taken by the private and public sectors in Mexico.

Why fraud protection is critical

A Global Anti-Scam Alliance report found that 27% of Mexicans have lost money in a scam – at an accumulated cost of almost US$17 billion, representing 1% of Mexico’s GDP. 

While credit cards are still king of ecommerce payment methods, that doesn’t mean retailers are off-the-hook to convince shoppers that their private financial information is safe on their e-shop:

• 94% of Mexican consumers view fraud prevention as more important than an easy checkout.
• 89% won’t shop at a store again if it allows fraud to happen.

Since fraud protection is essential for both consumers and retailers, being aware of Mexico’s specific scammer red flags is the best way to be sure your fraud protection solution is vigilant to the current trends.

What fraud analysts look for in Mexico

Fraud analysts who specialize in the Mexican market understand the behavior of legitimate Mexican buyers, as well as the tricks and techniques of fraudsters, and are trained to differentiate between the two.

Fraud analysts in Mexico watch for:

• The lack of a second last name. (It’s customary in Mexico to have two surnames.)
• The use of a very common last name, such as Hernández, González or García.
• Recently created email addresses that share composition traits with known-fraudulent addresses.
• Frequent purchase of high-risk products.
• Fast purchase speed, with changing items and amounts.
• Delivery addresses located in high-risk areas or areas that don’t exist.
• Lack of purchase history.
• Data changing from one order to another.
• IP addresses that are located in different states from the billing and delivery addresses.

Fraud filters

Fraud filters are usually built into your ecommerce platform and designed to identify potentially fraudulent orders so they aren’t processed. They include:

• Velocity filters that limit how many sales can be submitted to your website during a given time period. This prevents fraudsters with lists of stolen credit card numbers from testing all of them by flooding your site with orders.
• Address verification service (AVS) is a filter that declines or flags transactions when the billing and shipping addresses don’t match. These are intended to keep credit card thieves from having merchandise delivered to another address.
• Time-of-purchase filters are used to flag or block transactions during a specific timeframe — usually when fraudulent transactions are more likely to occur, such as holidays and special sales.
• Card verification value (CVV) filters look for errors in the CVV number being submitted.
• Purchase amount filters flag high-dollar transactions that fall outside a typical transaction amount.
• IP address mismatches can flag transactions where the customer’s IP address and shipping address don’t match, which is a potential fraud indicator.

Many Mexican ecommerce businesses have tightened their approval criteria using fraud filters and auto-declining solutions. While the fraud rates may have decreased, there’s a cost.

The cost of false declines

Strict approval criteria may indeed block out fraudsters, but it also negates legitimate transactions. A fraud solution is critical for doing ecommerce in Mexico. But it’s just as crucial to avoiding being overzealous to prevent fraud — because a false declined payment might cost you more than a sale. 

False declines happen when a legitimate transaction is mistaken for fraud and denied. Across Latin America, the false decline rate remains at about 50%. According to FYMTS Intelligence and Nuvei, nearly two-thirds of failed payments are difficult for the business to recover and damage customers' trust.

Our 2023-2024 Consumer Attitudes study showed a concerning impact of false declines on consumers. When asked if they would shop with an online business again after being falsely declined, 44% of Mexican consumers said no. Even worse, 45% said they would complain on social media.

To protect against fraud in Mexico, a fraud solution must reliably stop increasingly sophisticated fraudsters while providing genuine customers with a low-friction, frustration-free shopping experience.

An Ecommerce Fraud Prevention Solution for Mexico

At ClearSale, we combine all the options available for fraud protection into a fraud-managed solution that offers ecommerce businesses a way to protect themselves from fraud without risking turning away good customers.

A managed services solution does this by blending a fraud protection strategy, chargeback management strategies, and a team of trained fraud analysts. The solution can be used in place of an internal fraud team or to augment an in-house team, especially during times of increased sales volumes or periods of rapid growth.

Regardless of the velocity of your sales, applying AI to your ecommerce business guarantees that you can avoid more fraudulent purchases and keep bad players at bay. Plus, while your team signs off for the day, fraud prevention solutions like ClearSale can keep working overtime to take care of business until you’re back online.

Trusted instant, automatic and complete decision-making 

ClearSale’s AI-enabled algorithms learn from the latest fraud schemes to deliver speedy, effective fraud prevention that automatically greenlights good orders and declines the clear bad actors. As soon as the checkout process begins, ClearSale’s algorithm analyzes the available data points like geo-localization and tracking technology and compares them to known customer behavior and current global fraud trends to assign a fraud score and deliver an automatic approval decision.

Orders with a low score are automatically approved and orders that are clearly fraudulent are quarantined. Orders outside your pre-approved threshold — around 8% on average — are considered suspicious and investigated by our team of fraud experts. Unlike most fraud solutions, suspicious orders are not automatically declined, because 90% of those orders are actually legitimate (on average).

But while preserving your revenue is key to keeping your business afloat, ClearSale goes a step further to protect your brand’s reputation by fending off threats around the clock.

Top-Tier Threat Intelligence That Protects Your Assets

ClearSale has your brand’s back 24x7 to protect against cyberthreats across all layers of the internet using the best of both worlds: industry experts combined with artificial intelligence. 

Your IP, brand reputation and revenue are safe with ClearSale’s advanced statistical monitoring technology, which seeks, identifies, reports and takes down all types of threats from various sources. While we’re constantly scanning for threats, our world's largest team of specialized fraud analysts provides a careful, balanced analysis of what we report and helps you identify approaches to prevent future threats while avoiding false declines.

With our headquarters in Latin America, ClearSale knows Mexico. We’ve spent decades gathering and analyzing data, understanding fraud patterns and protecting clients in many of the world's highest-risk regions.

If you’re expanding your ecommerce business's reach into Mexico, contact us today to talk about keeping your business, your reputation, and your customers safe from fraud.