The Argentine businessman's digital commerce is growing rapidly in the South American country, becoming the fourth most penetrated market in Latin America.
At a crowded Mapocho Station - a cultural center where trains once ran, located in the historic center of the Chilean capital - also Chilean Víctor Hugo Ávila, co-founder and technology and product manager of the startup Envíame, answers questions from hundreds of entrepreneurs and businessmen looking for efficient delivery for their goods.
The company was founded in 2016 with 10 employees, responsible for connecting e-commerce companies with logistics distribution operators. Today, they have 160 employees, are present in 11 countries on the American continent, and are responsible for coordinating deliveries in 50 cities.
"We are the technology that allows us to optimize the communication process with couriers for the creation of labels, for tracking orders, to notify end buyers about the status of their shipment and a host of other functionalities associated with logistics optimization," explains Ávila.
Envíame and nearly 40 other exhibitors are meeting at the Mercado Libre Experience 2024, a Mercado Libre event that is being held in Chile for the first time and that has brought together 3,000 sellers from the most relevant marketplace in Latin America so that they can meet the companies that provide services for digital commerce within the Argentine platform.
The idea behind Mercado Libre was to bring everyone together in one place to achieve a B2B symbiosis, and to foster ties with and between sellers .
"Everything is on display here: executives to answer questions, training on how to use integration tools, how to use flex (the same-day shipping system), how to save fulfillment , how to use clips. There are some Mercado Pago products for companies and all the services that we can offer from an ecosystem that is created, thought out, transpired, and designed for our community of sellers and buyers," explains Alan Meyer, vice president of the Andean region of Mercado Libre .
CHILEAN SCOPE
The choice of Chile for the event was not a coincidence. This country is the fourth most important for Mercado Libre after the mega markets of Mexico, Brazil and Argentina.
We have 30,000 SMEs selling on Mercado Libre. And Together they are the largest retailer in Chile. The same thing happens in each of the countries where we operate. There are almost two million people who make a living selling on Mercado Libre throughout Latin America.
"Mercado Libre (ML) is a major player in the e-commerce ecosystem in Chile. After years of sustained growth, ML now receives several million views a day, resulting in more than 50 million orders a year. This places it among the platforms with the highest trade volume, comparable only to large traditional players such as Falabella or Cencosud," Marcel Goic, director of the Center for Retail Studies (CERET) of Industrial Engineering at the University of Chile, told AméricaEconomía .
But beyond the volume, the environment that this firm has created around its brand value and its spirit of democratising the e-commerce business is what elevates it in category among consumers, the academic believes.
"Mercado Libre has played a very important role in driving innovation in the industry and setting standards
of quality in the service provided: thanks to its natively digital model, ML has been a pioneer in innovating in the provision of specialized infrastructure and in processes that result in better service times," says Goic.
The thing is that, despite everything that has happened, there is still room for growth.
"We might think that e-commerce reached a ceiling after the pandemic. Chile went from 9%-10% of sales through e-commerce to almost 17%. But if we look at Europe or the United States, that number is already closer to double," says Meyer.
Meli's reach in the country is almost absolute, with the firm inaugurating shipments to remote Easter Island last May.
"We are already reaching 98% of the Chilean population and we are fully committed to reaching more than that," Meyer said.
Globally, it has also been an excellent season for Mercado Libre, which reported sales of US$ 5.1 billion during the second quarter of this year, representing a 42% year-on-year growth.
According to the financial statement released by the firm in early August, net revenue from its e-commerce business in the second quarter increased by 49% year-on-year to US$3 billion. Meanwhile, gross merchandise sales volume (GMV), the total value of products sold, increased by 20% year-on-year to US$12.6 billion.
Unique buyers grew 19% year-over-year, the fastest pace since Q1 2021, to 56.6 million. A record 416 million items delivered, with fulfillment penetration at 52%.
GALPERIN MARKS LAND
Marcos Galperin, the creator of Mercado Libre, was at the event and his presence did not go unnoticed. In a massive conference at the beginning of the meeting, Alan Meyer interviewed him about his beginnings, his time at Stanford, his business vision for Latin America and the relevance of Chile for the firm that has been listed on Nasdaq since 2007.
“Chile was a market that cost us a lot. We were not growing at the rate we wanted, but we continued to invest. The market reacted and the pandemic caught us at a great moment. Sales volume took off, we had the capacity to respond to high demand and this pace never stopped. Chile is by far where we have grown the most in the last five years. Mercado Libre is today one of the most valued brands in the country,” said Galperin.
The founder thus assessed the most recent report by the audience analysis firm Merco on the most valued brands in Chile, which for the first time was headed by a non-Chilean firm.
"Seeing more than 3,000 sellers representing our community of sellers here makes me incredibly proud. Seeing how our brand has evolved, grown, how we have positioned ourselves as [Mercado Libre is] the undisputed leader in e-commerce in Chile, with one in every two purchases made online being made on the platform," he stressed.
As the company turns 25 years old, a figure that the entity is celebrating in style in the region, its creator is betting on a challenging and promising future.
"As we say at Mercado Libre, the best is yet to come. I think we really feel that because e-commerce is still a relatively small percentage of total commerce and the opportunity is therefore enormous," Galperin concluded.
