The study found that the leading online retailer in Brazil was Mercadolivre.com.br, eBay’s Latin America partner, with headquarters in Buenos Aires. The site had 14.3 million unique visitors in Brazil in December of last year. Brazil-based Americanas.com came in second, with 8.1 million visitors. Walmart.com.br was the only US-based retailer to make the list of top online retailers in Brazil. The vast majority were homegrown sites.
Price comparison sites were also extremely popular in Brazil, with the No. 1 site, Buscape Company, seeing a greater number of unique visitors than Mercadolivre.com.br. Again, price comparison sites were heavily weighted toward local outfits—the top three sites were all Brazil-based. Following behind Buscape was Shopping UOL, with 10.9 million visitors. From there, the drop-off in site visitors was significant. Zoom.com.br saw 3.5 million unique visitors in December 2012.
With online shopping well established in Brazil, it makes sense that Brazil and Latin America-based sites have dominated the online retail landscape and helped solidify the category’s dominance. For international online retailers trying to make inroads, they face a steep uphill battle for market share.