Owned e-commerce still wins the crowd back
Most Brazilian shoppers start on a marketplace, but they don't stay loyal to it, and owned e-commerce is where they return. According to the Nuvemshop E-Consumidor 2026 survey of a thousand respondents, cited by E-Commerce Brasil, 73% of Brazilians buy on marketplaces such as Mercado Livre and Magalu [1]. Yet when price and delivery time are identical, 51% say they prefer the brand's own online store [1].
The gap widens at the second purchase. E-Commerce Brasil reports that 46.5% of shoppers return to buy again on the brand's own site, compared with just 30% who go back to the marketplace where they first bought [1]. Armando Nader, co-founder of the influencer-engineering startup Pilea Labs, frames it simply: the marketplace brings volume, the owned store brings the customer back [1].
That distinction matters more than it sounds. Acquisition is expensive everywhere. If the channel that wins the first sale isn't the one that wins the second, brands are paying twice to recover the margin they already spent reaching that shopper once.
Why repurchases concentrate on owned channels
Owned e-commerce wins the second sale because it's the only channel where a brand controls the full journey and keeps the data that journey generates. A brand's own site lets it run remarketing, email, and retention programs built on actual purchase history, something a marketplace storefront never hands over in full [1].
EMARKETER's research backs the pattern outside Brazil too. More than 55% of US consumers say they feel more connected to brands when shopping on brand-owned websites, and nearly 60% shop directly with brands specifically for exclusive benefits, per a November 2024 survey from EMARKETER and EWS [3]. Brand websites also remain a trusted source of product information, particularly in electronics and apparel, per Bazaarvoice data cited by EMARKETER [3].
None of this means direct-to-consumer is expanding its share. US D2C ecommerce sales are forecast to plateau at around 19% of total US retail ecommerce through 2028, per EMARKETER [3]. The point isn't volume. It's that owned channels still capture a disproportionate share of the value: the data, the trust, and the repeat transaction.
TikTok Shop's scale is a reason to diversify, not retreat
TikTok Shop's growth doesn't threaten owned e-commerce, it adds a new acquisition channel that brands need to convert into lasting relationships. EMARKETER expects TikTok Shop to generate $23.41 billion in US sales in 2026, the fastest-growing retailer the firm tracks for the second consecutive year, larger than Target, Kroger, Shein, and Best Buy [2]. Its discovery-led model has pulled multibrand retailers like Ulta and Sally Beauty onto the platform [2].
“When Mercado Libre committed $2.5 billion to Mexico in 2024, its goal was partly to stay ahead of Amazon and Asian platforms. The 2026 commitment nearly doubles that figure, and its growing share of the market suggests the strategy is working.”
Amazon still anchors the category. It holds 39.7% of all US ecommerce sales in 2026 and captures more than 79% of US retail media ad spending, since advertisers follow where transactions happen [2]. EMARKETER frames the resulting strategy as a portfolio decision: Amazon as the anchor, with TikTok Shop and other platforms layered around it for growth [2].
The investment scale behind these platforms keeps rising. Mercado Libre's 2026 commitment to Mexico nearly doubled its prior pledge, a sign of how aggressively marketplace leaders are converting capital into fulfillment and logistics advantages [2].
| Marketplace type | Example | What it rewards |
|---|---|---|
| Search-led | Amazon, Walmart Marketplace | Listing optimization, retail media spend [2] |
| Discovery-led | TikTok Shop | Creator networks, content velocity [2] |
| Owned e-commerce | Brand's own site | First-party data, remarketing, repeat purchase [1][3] |
Marketplaces are building their own communities too
Large marketplaces aren't ignoring the lesson, they're applying it inside their own platforms. Brazilian sporting goods retailer Centauro built creator communities organized by sport, activating products by category and naming community leaders for each one [1]. In beauty, Amobeleza runs a similar model, organizing influencers around categories like perfumery, makeup, skincare, and hair care to promote both its own and partner brands [1].
This confirms the underlying argument rather than undermining it. Marketplaces have recognized that community generates positioning value and buyer conviction that a pure price-and-delivery listing can't replicate on its own [1]. The tactic is portable: whether the storefront is a brand's own domain or a marketplace page, the mechanism that converts a follower into a buyer, and a buyer into a repeat buyer, is the same relationship-building work.
Community compounds when creators stick around
A brand's influencer base takes roughly four months to mature into peak sales performance, which is why the timing of community investment matters as much as the investment itself. Pilea Labs research found that an influencer base needs about that long to ramp up and generate its sales peak around Black Friday, meaning recurring relationships, not last-minute campaigns, drive the big selling moments [1].
The data on consistency is sharper still. Some 90% of sales from influencer marketing come from recurring creators who maintain an ongoing relationship with a brand, according to Pilea Labs [1]. Growing the size of that influencer and affiliate community compounds further, generating up to 4.2 times more sales for brands that invest in it over time [1].
For a brand deciding where to spend a limited creator budget, that is a clear signal: a roster of 20 creators who post every month outperforms a one-off campaign with 200 creators who never return.
How should brands split investment between marketplaces and owned e-commerce?
Treat marketplaces, including TikTok Shop, as acquisition and discovery channels, and treat the owned store as the retention and data layer that turns that traffic into a lasting relationship. The two aren't competing budgets, they're sequential stages of the same customer journey, and EMARKETER's own guidance to sellers reflects that split [2][3].
In practice, that means:
Marketplaces and TikTok Shop will keep growing in absolute terms. That growth doesn't replace the owned channel's job: it just adds another place community has to be identified and converted before it ever reaches the brand's own store.
- 1Keep a presence on the marketplaces where your category's shoppers already browse, but don't mistake marketplace traffic for an owned customer relationship.
- 2Fund recurring creator relationships instead of one-off bursts, since repeat creators generate the large majority of influence-led revenue [1].
- 3Build community capture into the owned site itself, through loyalty programs, newsletters, and direct-purchase perks, since that is where brand connection and trust concentrate [3].
- 4Track repurchase rate by channel as a core metric, not just first-order conversion or traffic volume, since that is where owned e-commerce's advantage actually shows up [1].
Sources
- [1]E-Commerce Brasil, Marketplace e TikTok Shop não substituem comunidade; e-commerce proprietário continua sendo core dos negócios — ecommercebrasil.com.br
- [2]EMARKETER, FAQ on ecommerce marketplaces: The shift from Amazon-only to multi-marketplace — emarketer.com
- [3]EMARKETER, FAQ on direct-to-consumer commerce: How to make D2C profitable in 2026 — emarketer.com
