Amazon's Arrival Leaves Mexican E-Commerce Pioneer in the Dust
- Liverpool investing a fraction of newer arrivals’ spending
- Retailer was online innovator, making first sale in 1997
One of the first Mexican retailers to sell online is quickly falling behind newer arrivals, and it may be too late to catch up, according to Credit Suisse.
El Puerto de Liverpool, which conducted its first e-commerce transaction in 1997, is spending just a fraction of the amount as Amazon.com Inc., MercadoLibre Inc. and Wal-Mart de Mexico SAB on bolstering internet operations in Mexico. Instead, its shares have tumbled to a five-year low amid a focus on opening new brick-and-mortar stores at a record pace.
Liverpool, which traces its roots to a Mexico City clothing store set up in 1847, offers fewer products online than its peers do and many of its items can only be purchased in stores. Shipping is free but can take longer than five days when there’s high demand, compared with as little as one day for some Amazon orders. Perhaps most importantly, it doesn’t accept cash payments for online purchases, which cuts off a big chunk of the population in Mexico, where fewer than half of adults have credit cards.