Mercado Libre’s Lower Shipping Threshold Boosts Brazil Engagement

Mercado Libre lowered its free-shipping threshold in Brazil to reduce checkout friction and encourage customers to place orders more frequently. The initiative is significant because Brazil is one of the Latin American e-commerce group’s core markets, where converting occasional shoppers into habitual users can support gross merchandise volume, deepen customer retention and improve the economics of its logistics network.

In its second-quarter earnings report, Mercado Libre said the policy had produced a structural shift in consumer behavior one year after the threshold was reduced. Growth in daily active users continued to outpace monthly active-user growth, indicating that more customers were moving from monthly shopping to everyday engagement. Average items purchased per buyer climbed 19%, providing a key measure of the free-shipping strategy’s impact.