What A Surge In Mexico E-Commerce Will Mean For LatAm Sample Demand

Mexico will be the fastest-growing e-commerce market in Latin America over the next five years. Fitch Solutions predicts average annual sales growth of 14.6% year-over-year from 2018 to 2022, driven, in part, by Mexico's favorable consumer demographics, who are young ambitious and becoming more affluent. Eighty percent of Mexico’s population of over 130M live in urban areas, and 32% are young adults between the ages of 20 and 39. Furthermore, the number of households with a disposable income over USD 10,000 is expected to increase from 34% of all households in 2017 to almost 57% of all households in 2022. That represents an additional 8.5mn households.

Most internet users and e-commerce consumers are in major cities like Mexico City, Monterrey and Guadalajara making them prime areas for #ecommerce growth.

Mexico's proximity to the US is also driving investments from domestic, regional and global e-commerce companies such as Walmart and Amazon. Given the closely weaved supply chains between the two countries, e-commerce companies can easily satisfy heavy demand amongst Mexican customers for US products, while at the same time forming relationships with Mexican vendors and producers to supply the domestic and US market.

All these factors will likely lead to a surge of U.S. companies looking to research the Mexican and Latin American consumer thus driving demand for Latin American online sample. Despite the availability of LatAm sample, however, sample companies should exercise caution when selecting their sample providers to ensure sample integrity.

Below are three questions you should ask when choosing your Latin American sample provider:

• Does their panel screen by the socioeconomic levels as generally accepted by each country? Unlike the U.S. which has a generally accepted taxonomy for household income to define socioeconomic levels, each Latin America country has a slightly different scale. Ensure your Latin American panel provider is capturing these levels for each country accordingly.
• How does the panel recruit for mobile only respondents? Mobile only internet access is significantly higher in Latin America than in the U.S. Ensuring your Latin American sample provider has a robust mobile recruitment and engagement strategy is critical to ensuring your Latin American sample is representative of the target population you are looking to research.
• Do they have a cash solution for incentives? Many Latin American countries, including Mexico, rely heavily on cash. Digital incentive systems used in the U.S. may not capture a representative population for panels relying solely on digital incentives. Inquire to learn if your Latin American sample provider has a cash solution for incentivizing their respondents as this will be critical for researching large portions of the population.

This is an exciting time to be in the panel industry. The growth of e-commerce throughout Latin America provides an opportunity to reach more consumers and help our clients enter new markets informed resulting in the development of products and services that are relevant and culturally sound.