Buying stuff online in America vs Brazil

If you are reading this story, you probably like computers and enjoy buying stuff online.

In Brazil, people love to buy things online too, and e-commerce is growing in exponential rates. However, every purchase you make, there’s a headache attached to it — the shipping.

If you live in America, you are probably used to paying 4 or 5 dollars for shipping on Amazon, and getting your new stuff in just a few days. Of course, it depends on the availability of the item, but in general, Amazon has it stored and ready for delivering to you shortly.

In Brazil, things are a little bit different. First of all, you don’t have the plethora of shipping companies to deliver your goods, each one trying to compete to gain your heart. The good thing about competition is that it usually puts prices down and the services are improved. It doesn’t happen in Brazil since we don’t have that much of competition. There’s only one huge and not very competent state-owned company and some private delivery companies that have contracts with big e-commerce websites.

As a result, when you buy something online in Brazil, your shipping might cost more than the product itself, and the product may or may not be delivered. (Yes! It can happen) The shipping times are usually very long, meaning your product may take weeks to arrive depending on where you live, and sometimes it can even be stolen from the big state-owned shipping company (called Correios) — yes, it can happen, for real.

I am currently in America for vacations and a few days ago I needed a new screen protector for my new iPhone 6s. I went out to Amazon, chose from an enormous selection of good screen protectors and got it for $9. When I proceeded to the checkout, I was surprised by the shipping options — which inspired me to write this text. See for yourself:

Yes! It will take 2 days and be delivered on a Sunday — for free.

It is important to note that my account is Amazon Prime, but still, it think it is totally worth paying $8.25 a month if you buy a lot of stuff.

So, to have a fair comparison, I went back to Amazon with a regular, non-Prime account, and tried to buy the same item. The standard shipping was almost the price of the product because the product is really cheap:

So, $9 for the product, $6 for the shipping, and it would take about a week to arrive. Still great.

Then I went to one of Brazil’s largest retailers and e-commerce portal, Americanas.com. First I tried only the glass screen protector. Look what I got for shipping:

Yes! The product costs ~20 BRL (Brazilian Reals), the shipping costs 13.31 BRL AND it will take up to 9 business days to arrive.

Obs.: when comparing currencies, you can imagine yourself paying $20 USD on a screen protector, instead of paying $20 BRL. If you actually convert BRL to USD it would be a very low price but the average income in BRL is lower than the average income in USD. So, consider you would be paying $20 USD for the item and $13 USD for the shipping.

Ok, back to the story. So far the prices are absurdly higher in Brazil, but come’on, it’s just one cheap item. Let’s see what happens when you want to buy a cellphone (which is absurdly more expensive too):

Ok, now I give up. the shipping is actually A LOT higher, and it may take up to 13 business days to deliver, meaning you have to wait for about 3 weeks, if you are lucky. Wow. About the currencies again, imagine yourself paying $700 USD on an 8GB 2Gen Moto G.

So, to be fair, I went back to Amazon and simulated the order of the same Moto G together with the glass protection for my iPhone 6s, WITHOUT the Prime account. Surprise:

Free shipping and it takes 5 to 8 business days, AND the phone was a lot cheaper even if I had converted the currencies. My God!

Well, thank God there’s light at the end of the tunnel, even if it’s very dim, as some startups have been showing up trying to solve this huge and absurd logistics problem in my country. An amazing example is Shippify Stories, which even got a letter from the aforementioned huge state-owned company saying that they were breaking the law because Correios has the monopoly on shipping mail. Ok, I’m done here.