Mexico's Online Shopping Grows Up as Stores and Apps Merge

Online shopping in Mexico is no longer the new thing. It is on track to make up 17.7% of all retail sales in 2026, and the businesses doing best are the ones that make buying online, on a phone and in a store feel like one experience.

What changed

The first challenge was getting people to shop online. That has largely been solved. Mexico has 77.2 million online shoppers, and the competition now is about how often they buy, how fast orders arrive and whether they come back.

The phone is at the center. About 85% of online purchases are made on a smartphone, and a significant share happen within 24 hours of first seeing a product. Younger shoppers, especially Gen Z, use social platforms to research products and compare prices.

Where merchants struggle

Many sellers have not kept up with their customers. The article points to disconnected software, manual work, and shoppers who abandon their carts because paying is clumsy or delivery is slow.

Technology providers are offering all-in-one systems that cover building a storefront, shipping through several carriers and spotting fraud. One example named is a unified AI system from T1. The article says AI can raise the share of payments that get approved while keeping card fraud very low. A key goal is avoiding false declines, where a real first-time buyer is wrongly turned away.

Some banks have also launched in-app payment tools. These let customers pay without handing card details to outside sellers.

Stores are not going away

Online growth has not killed physical shops. Retailers in Mexico are adding stores while strengthening their online sales. The article says the sector is on track to add thousands of new points of sale, across self-service, department and specialty formats.

New Balance is a clear example. It ends 2026 with 21 stores in Mexico, covering more than 4,000 square meters. New locations are in San Agustín, Nuevo León; Parque Toreo in Naucalpan, Estado de México; and Altaria in Aguascalientes. The Galerías Guadalajara store is being remodeled. Arturo Bejarano, general manager of New Balance Mexico, leads the effort. The company is pairing store upgrades with online integration to raise the average ticket, meaning how much a customer spends per purchase, and to make each store more productive.

Who it affects

• Small and medium businesses, which account for the vast majority of transactions on major e-commerce platforms.
• Sellers who use social media feeds as a place to sell.
• Shoppers who research online and then buy in a store, or the reverse.

What is not known

The article does not say how much AI tools improve payment approval, only that the gain is significant. It also does not give a number for the new stores expected across the sector, only that it is in the thousands.