Growth beyond the largest cities
The regional shift comes as Mexico's online retail market continues to expand. AMVO's 2026 Online Sales Study puts 2025 sales at MX$941 billion, about US$50 billion, a 19.2% increase from the previous year, with 77.2 million online shoppers. According to AMVO, the sector is growing roughly 25 times faster than Mexico's GDP and is among the world's 10 largest e-commerce markets.
Internet access has also broadened, though connectivity and purchasing remain distinct measures. Mexico had 104.9 million internet users in 2025, representing 86.1% of people age six and older. Household internet access reached 78.3%, up from 39.1% in 2015. INEGI nevertheless reports that only 37.3% of internet users made an online purchase during the past year.
Mexico Business News identifies secondary markets as an opportunity to reach consumers who have fewer locally tailored online offers. It reports that acquisition costs in these corridors are a fraction of those in Mexico City, allowing retailers to recover marketing spending sooner.
Advertising and delivery costs pressure established markets
Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey have long attracted most of the investment from major brands and marketplaces. Their large customer bases and established logistics networks now come with increasingly expensive digital advertising and congested delivery routes, squeezing margins and lengthening payback periods.
Enrique Girón, Infracommerce's business development director for North Latam, has highlighted declining median contribution margins among direct-to-consumer brands. His assessment puts the focus on profitability rather than advertising performance alone: competition for search traffic and social media impressions can consume the gains from sales growth.
Road congestion compounds that pressure. Mordor Intelligence reports peak traffic speeds of 12-15 km/h in the three major metropolitan markets, doubling or tripling delivery times. Its analysis estimates that last-mile costs can be up to 25% higher than in secondary locations. Vehicle-restriction programs such as Hoy No Circula also remove 20% of fleets from the road one day each week.
The Bajío builds out its fulfillment network
In Querétaro and Guanajuato, industrial nearshoring, automotive production and rising formal wages are supporting consumer purchasing power. The Bajío's role as a central logistics corridor is also attracting distribution investment that reduces storage and shipping costs and supports same-day and next-day service.
AutoZone's US$183 million distribution center at Plataforma Industrial León-Bajío in León, Guanajuato, covers 194,832 m² and is expected to create approximately 600 jobs. The project strengthens distribution across the Bajío and western Mexico while supporting Guanajuato SUMA, the state's industrial strategy targeting US$9 billion in investment by 2030.
Querétaro already hosts DHL's US$120 million hub, whose automated sorters process 41,000 parcels an hour, according to Mordor Intelligence. The firm forecasts that Querétaro will lead growth in Mexico's e-commerce warehouse market, with a 7.79% compound annual growth rate through 2031. Nuevo León held the largest reported share in 2025, accounting for 28.91% of revenue. Nationally, the market is projected to increase from US$1.07 billion in 2026 to US$1.38 billion in 2031.
Mercado Libre's broader 2026 expansion includes a MX$911 million distribution center in El Salto, Jalisco, serving western Mexico and the Bajío. The 100,000 m² facility adds more than 900 jobs and capacity to handle 3,600 shipments per hour. Separately, Mordor Intelligence reports that Mercado Libre is investing US$300 million in Hidalgo to preserve fulfillment independence amid competition from Temu and SHEIN.
Central and northern corridors gain capacity
The State of Mexico combines a dense population around the capital with strong physical connections to it. Mexico Business News reports double-digit digital commerce growth there and a share exceeding 10% of new small and midsize business commercial activity. It describes the state as one of the least expensive locations for testing omnichannel retail and direct-to-consumer operations.
Puebla and Veracruz offer another route into regional demand. Puebla's improving digital literacy and trade initiatives, including the multibillion-dollar commercial integrations showcased at E-Experience, accompany rising online order volumes. Lower regional labor costs and the highway connection between the port of Veracruz and central Mexico support the cost advantages of serving these markets.
Nearshoring has also brought employment and cross-border capital into northern cities. The Home Depot México is expanding its network with an 11,800 m² Specialized Logistics Center in Chihuahua, increasing distribution capacity for eight stores in Chihuahua, Durango and Coahuila. Its regional footprint allows it to serve those states without routing orders through central hubs. The expansion belongs to a strategy targeting more than 160 Mexican stores and 100% national sourcing by 2028.
These regional investments do not mean established markets have stopped attracting capital. In March 2025, Amazon announced a US$6 billion plan for mega-sites in Nuevo León and Jalisco to extend same-day delivery coverage. Each site is designed for 900,000 daily picks, according to Mordor Intelligence.
Local operations meet mobile demand
Same-day and next-day delivery services now operate in more than 25 Mexican urban centers, Mexico Business News reports. That expansion addresses delays that previously hurt conversions outside the largest cities. Alongside customer acquisition costs, fulfillment spending and retention after a purchase remain central to regional returns.
Infracommerce CEO Mariano Oriozabala says the company is directing investment and hiring toward Mexico to help brands replace inefficient cross-border models with local operations. He expects Mexican demand for immediate delivery and high service standards to outpace that of other Latin American markets.
Mobile shopping provides another way to reach regional customers without relying on a physical store network. Mordor Intelligence puts smartphone penetration at 76% in 2024 and says mobile devices account for 68% of online purchases. Digital wallets reached 42% of shoppers in 2025.
Héctor Tinjacá, VTEX's general manager for North LATAM, describes social feeds as a point of sale, with Live Shopping and native interaction systems changing the traditional sales funnel and making immediacy decisive. Where local stores offer limited product selection, Mexico Business News argues that social discovery can encourage adoption with little upfront marketing expense.
Protecting margins at checkout
The regional opportunity also requires payment acceptance and fraud controls suited to shoppers using digital wallets, buy now, pay later services and embedded payment interfaces. Higher transaction volumes can erode profitability if merchants lack adequate risk systems.
Dieter Spangenberg, fraud director at Koin, says growth requires more precise risk management, not simply more aggressive blocking of suspicious transactions. Legitimate buyers must also be protected from rejection when their signals are misinterpreted.
Mexico Business News identifies AI-driven risk scoring, alongside local warehouse capacity and mobile-native checkout, as necessary to sustain regional returns. Such systems can help approve genuine first-time shoppers while limiting losses from fraudulent chargebacks and false-positive rejections.
