Webinar: Selling on Mexican Marketplaces in 2024 – with Walmart Mexico

Join Christian and Blanca from Walmart Mexico, along with Maria Cecilia from nocnoc, as they explore why Mexico stands as one of the most promising e-commerce markets for international expansion.

Webinar Transcript

Introduction

Cecilia: Hello everyone, thank you so much for joining us today. I’m Cecilia from nocnoc , and today I’m joined by Blanca and Christian from Walmart Mexico. We will be discussing the marketplace landscape in Mexico, Walmart Mexico, why it’s a great choice for brands and retailers looking to sell online in Mexico, and also some of the challenges and opportunities regarding cross-border e-commerce. 

About Walmart Mexico

Christian: Hi everyone. Walmart Mexico serves customers uniquely as the biggest open-channel company in Mexico, leveraging all of our online operations within our brick-and-mortar stores. This allows us to offer the best omnichannel service in Mexico with a superior shopping experience. 

Our main site, walmart.com.mx, attracts approximately 27 million unique visitors monthly, demonstrating our massive scale and extensive customer reach with over a 40% year-over-year sales growth. With our physical stores strategically located within 10 minutes for 80% of Mexican customers, our cross-border initiative further expands our reach. We have over 3,000 brick-and-mortar stores nationwide, each equipped with kiosks serving e-commerce platforms, including our cross-border program. These kiosks engage customers, driving traffic both online and offline. In Mexico, over 50% of e-commerce buyers purchase cross-border, leveraging our trusted reputation and brand recognition. To expand your business, I recommend partnering with Walmart and trusted partners like nocnoc, one of our best partners, whom we value working with. 

Mexico’s growth in e-commerce

Christian: Mexico just got ranked as the number one country in growth speed for online shopping worldwide. Also, we have the e-commerce boom that has increased popularity in online shopping, being hot sale and the most important online events, one is hosted in May and the other one in November. Another thing that is important to mention is the lower competition. CBT in Walmart is growing, therefore, there’s a wide opportunity of categories and items that we can skyrocket together.

Also, the cultural affinity, we have seen that the Mexican customer sometimes is looking for items that are trending or lovable in other countries, so that’s why we can get items from other countries to perform good here in Mexico. Also, we have the trade agreements. This means that we have governmental agreements with other countries that allow us these trade facilities to bring the products to Mexico.

Mexico’s Cross-border opportunity

Blanca: We have trade agreements, which means we have governmental agreements with other countries that allow us trade facilities to bring products to Mexico. Also, customer acquisition is increasing in Mexico. People are going online more often and looking for affinity items that are sometimes only available in other countries. This is where cross-border e-commerce comes in; we facilitate customers to access these products. With the current global situation, cross-border e-commerce is opening up new markets for exploration. This helps increase the conversion of these items due to the facilities we have at borders and with carriers to bring these products, offering a unique experience to the final customer.

Cecilia: Okay, let me introduce you to nocnoc. nocnoc is the largest cross-border store in Latin America. So, we enable retailers and brands to sell their products through nocnoc megastores in over 15 different marketplaces, including Walmart, which is one of the largest marketplaces in Mexico.

Now, let’s talk about the cross-border opportunity in Mexico. Mexico has the highest cross-border eCommerce sales volume in Latin America and is one of the fastest-growing cross-border e-commerce markets globally. It holds 22% of the cross-border share in e-commerce, with an annual growth rate of 38%. Eight out of 10 Mexican consumers bought cross-border in 2022. Mexican consumers are accustomed to buying international brands and products due to limited local availability or more affordable prices in the US.

Advantages of cross-border selling

Moving on to why selling cross-border is advantageous. Firstly, it expands your consumer base and sales potential. Secondly, it allows for diversification across different marketplaces, crucial for sustained growth. Thirdly, it provides an opportunity to test the market before full-scale expansion, allowing brands to gauge product popularity and consumer behavior.

The importance of marketplaces in Mexico cannot be overstated. Over 80% of online sales in Latin America come from marketplaces. According to a survey, 40% of consumers prefer buying from marketplaces, indicating their significance in the region. Diversification across various marketplaces is vital to tap into different consumer segments and maximize sales potential.

How to ensure success in Mexico

Ensuring success in Mexico requires localization, understanding import restrictions, suitability of products for the market, and accurate translations. Customer satisfaction is paramount, requiring reliable customer support in Spanish. Reputation management is crucial for trust-building among Mexican consumers, with marketplace ratings heavily influencing purchasing decisions.

Selecting the right channels is key. Identifying platforms with high consumer traffic is essential for maximizing visibility and sales. Pricing and marketing strategies must be tailored to the Mexican market to remain competitive and attract customers.

nocnoc aids sellers in achieving success in Mexico by leveraging its extensive network of Mega stores across multiple marketplaces. Sellers benefit from marketing campaigns, promotions, and expert guidance on pricing and marketing strategies. nocnoc handles logistics, including shipping, payments, customs, and taxes, making selling in Mexico hassle-free.

If you’re interested in signing up with nocnoc to sell on Walmart and other marketplaces, our team can guide you through the process and help you get started. We have an easy-to-use platform where you can manage everything through a single seller center. Feel free to reach out to us for more information or assistance.

That concludes my presentation. Now, if you have any questions, please type them in the chat, and we’ll be happy to answer them. Thank you for listening, and I hope our session was informative and helpful.

Q&A

Q1: What are the top-selling product categories at Walmart Mexico?

Chris: Well, it’s quite different for the domestic business and the cross-border business. For domestic business, we have all electronics in general as the top sellers, but also big appliances, furniture, and mattresses. However, in cross-border, it’s a bit different because parcel deliveries are more affordable for customers than big-sized deliveries. So, in cross-border, we have top-selling categories of mobile phones, computers, electronics in general, but also we are developing a lot in the home categories. Additionally, apparel and health and beauty are top-selling categories with us. I think all across the market, but it’s a great opportunity. If you have categories like health and beauty, apparel, and home, there’s a lot of opportunity to grow your business with us in that category.

Q2: What is the connection between nocnoc and Walmart Mexico?

Cecilia: We have stores in different marketplaces in Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, and Chile. Our stores are all cross-border stores, so we help sellers to sell within nocnoc store and to start selling in Walmart but also other marketplaces. In this way, we list their products in our stores, and we take care of everything for them, literally. So, imagine that you are a brand in the US selling in US marketplaces. You would like to test the Mexican market by selling on Walmart. If you sign up to nocnoc, nocnoc will list your products in nocnoc store within Walmart, and our local team will do a lot of different actions to boost the sale of your products. We work as a store but also as a 360-degree solution because one of the biggest differences between selling alone and selling with nocnoc is that we have a strong reputation in Mexico. 

We do a lot of awareness campaigns, so our stores have a strong reputation and also enable us to drive more consumers. So, for those sellers who might not be well-known in Mexico, nocnoc can give you a bigger push. I hope I made myself clear, but basically, we have a big cross-border store in Mexico in Walmart Mexico. By selling to nocnoc, sellers can list their products there, and we will take care of everything from translations to payments in USD, taking care of customer support, cancellations, campaigns, promotions, and preparing them for events, so that’s basically what we do.

Q3: It’s stated that health and beauty is very prosperous in Mexico. What are the government restrictions?

Christian: Absolutely. Well, we have a government dependency that is COFEPRIS. They do the regulations for all the health and beauty products. They are looking to take care of our people and the buyers that use these products. How can we help with that? Okay, let me go a step back. The regulations are not like restrictions, but it’s more like paperwork. Why? Because you need to be a certified brand owner to resell the products with us. You need to have a chain of traceable payments so we can verify that the goods are buying in a good way and it’s not from gray markets. It’s all an international policy of Walmart that looks for trust and safety. Our team looks for all these regulations with all of our partners like nocnoc, so it can be quite a bit of paperwork at the beginning. But, for example, with nocnoc, we have several cases when we need information, and the information between them and us goes really fast. So, we can expedite the process with the trust and safety areas. If everything is okay, we can let you sell our products.

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Start selling in Mexico and access +15 marketplaces including Walmart Mexico in less than 48hs. Sign up to nocnoc through this link to get started.