Courtesy of Rest of World, an interesting look at how, while Amazon and MercadoLibre get all the credit, it’s really a patchwork of mom-and-pop shops that keep Mexico’s e-commerce running:

Online sales in Mexico grew by 80% in 2020, and they’ve since kept growing by over 20% every year. Amid this trend, neighborhood corner shops, laundromats, and office supply stores have become an essential intermediary between online shoppers and the massive e-commerce companies that ship and deliver the products they buy.

When e-commerce truly got going in the country back in 2015, companies like MercadoLibre and Amazon quickly realized its logistics infrastructure wasn’t developed enough. For instance, Mexico’s national postal service has a countrywide network and is very cheap, but it is also largely unreliable. Meanwhile, private couriers like UPS or DHL also have a large network of pickup and delivery points, but they’re pricey — almost five times more expensive than the postal service.

So the e-commerce companies started developing their own courier services. Still, these new logistics providers don’t quite have the range to reach every address in Mexico.

Enter the humble corner shop. They’re found in the smallest, most remote communities and are deemed trustworthy by locals. Plus, they’re places that already receive shipments or mail, so they’re easy to find on delivery routes. This latter point was important across sprawling suburbs and rural or remote areas, where addresses tend to be inaccurate or outright missing from satellite navigation maps. E-commerce companies reached out to these shops, inviting them to become pickup and delivery points.

Shoppers can register these corner stores as P.O. boxes when making online purchases. And instead of going to an official DHL or UPS office, which may be in a different city altogether, they can use local shops to drop off an item they might want to return.

The rise of the one-stop, mom-and-pop delivery shop has created an ecosystem unto itself. Independent intermediaries now make a living by charging to place and receive online orders for people who find it difficult to make an online purchase. These intermediaries place customers’ orders each week, delivered all in one package, and give customers detailed instructions on how and where to pick them up. The pickup point is frequently a mom-and-pop shop.

Big e-commerce companies usually get all the credit for driving Mexico’s online commerce boom, but the country’s smallest businesses are actually its crucial building blocks.