- The company is strengthening its last-mile logistics network;
- Earlier this year, Mercado Libre began allowing people to make deliveries with their own cars in Mexico City.
E-commerce giant Mercado Libre is offering outsourced delivery jobs in Mexico, trying to do so in more than 30 cities by the end of the year and then also in other countries to speed up deliveries, it said on Wednesday.
The company is strengthening its last-mile logistics network (the last stage of delivery) in recent years, including a fleet of trucks and four planes, in the face of strong competition from Amazon and Walmart.
Earlier this year, it started allowing people to make deliveries with their own cars in Mexico City. It then expanded to five other cities, with 1,200 registered delivery drivers.
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“We want to diversify our different last-mile delivery models,” said Omar Rodriguez, the company’s director of logistics in Mexico, explaining that the outsourced jobs pay almost 1,000 pesos ($49.50) for nine-hour routes and allow workers to make their own schedules. The minimum wage in most of Mexico is 141.70 pesos a day.
Amazon Flex offers a similar program in the US, paying most delivery workers $18 to $25 per hour. The e-commerce giant has been criticized for using outsourced workers rather than hiring employees with full benefits.
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Mercado Libre said it is also expanding a program in Mexico to list small shops, such as liquor or bakeries, to store and distribute packages, paying a commission of up to 10 pesos per package.
More than 1,000 shops have been registered to participate in 13 states in Mexico, and Mercado Libre said it will look to include shops nationwide by the end of the year.
(Translated by LABS)
