What is the key to the Brazilian market?

Brazil is an attractive market for any online merchant. With a majority-urbanized population of 213 million, it’s the biggest country in Latin America and its economy is ranked ninth in the world, accounting for almost one-third of all Latin American commerce.

In 2020, eCommerce in Brazil generated 126.3 billion Brazilian reals (22.2 billion USD) in revenue. This is over 68 percent more than the 75.1 billion real reported a year earlier. It is forecasted that Brazil’s online shopping revenue will increase by 18 percent in 2021, surpassing 149 billion reals (26.2 billion USD).

Annual online shopping revenue in Brazil from 2017 with a forecast for 2021 (in billion Brazilian reals)

Mobile penetration is over 96 percent, mobile commerce is growing rapidly, and research shows that Brazilians spend more than ten hours on the internet every day.

In other words, for eCommerce, Brazil is a waking giant.

How can I access this market?

Online merchants interested in operating in this burgeoning region need a key to the local market, which can come by way of a payment technology partner that has local links and that understands what works best from the ground.

Payment methods

While a small majority of Brazilians favor credit cards, alternative payment methods are important in this market because an estimated 25 percent of Brazilian consumers do not have bank accounts. That’s why it’s vital to integrate with payment methods like Boleto Bancário and Pix. The latter is an instant payment platform launched by the Brazilian Central Bank. It has tens of millions of users, both individuals and businesses, and is a good example of the kind of regional preference that merchants need to be aware of. Nuvei is integrated with payment methods popular in Brazil – including Boleto Bancário, Pix, Mercadopago, Hipercard, and Elo – providing our merchants with the ability to access this market effectively.

Local acquiring

For international merchants, acquiring can be a hurdle. If a merchant does not have access to local acquiring in Brazil, they may find transactions being declined and sales being lost. Some payment providers operate a closed system confined to a select number of acquiring partners, an approach which has a number of drawbacks – lack of flexibility being chief among them. Nuvei’s platform is integrated with more than 200 acquirers worldwide, including multiple redundancies in Brazil, allowing us to provide optimized transaction approvals by routing transactions locally. Our smart routing engine is acquirer agnostic, and will automatically redirect transactions in cases of declines and technical issues, further optimizing conversions.

Localization

Localization is more than just adjusting language and currency settings on a payment interface. Merchants interested in Brazil have to be aware of the nuances of market demand. For example, in Brazil there is a growing appetite for digital goods and services and the older segments of the population have surpassed their juniors in digital adoption. Marketplaces – such as Mercado Livre – are enormously popular. To give an example: Magazine Luiza, a popular local retailer, reported that online sales accounted for almost two thirds of its total sales in 2020. Four years earlier, it wasn’t even one quarter.

This means that merchants looking to Brazil should have strong subscription billing options ready to meet demand. Nuvei has guided some of the largest subscription merchants in the world to success in Brazil – Zumba and Bumble for example – and this is only possible because of our local connections. Through our offices in Brazil we employ a team that maintains links with our clients and constantly monitors performance to see what can be adjusted.

Muito obrigado por ler (Thank you very much for reading ?)

A strong local payment strategy in Brazil requires knowledge of local preferences in terms of services and payment methods as well as localized payment interfaces, acquiring connections, and a strong relationship with your payment provider. At Nuvei, we believe that payment services should work around the merchant rather than the other way around – that’s why, for example, our full-stack processing is designed to be completely acquirer and provider agnostic. That’s the kind of agility required in today’s competitive eCommerce landscape, and we advise online merchants – whether they’re dealing in cryptocurrency exchanges, dating, iGaming, electronic goods, food services, or any of the segments popular in Brazil – to be sure that they make the right partnerships for their long-term goals.

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