Importing from China changed the game: the R$ 20M/month Mercado Livre operation
▶ Watch on YouTubeFrom the first container in 2022 (test) to 600-700 a year: Ecommerce Puro's operation makes R$ 20M/month importing from China, 30 monthly containers, and a war against freight that rose 7x.
Highlights
- Trajectory: 1 container in 2022 (test) → 117 in 2023 → 498 in 2024 → 600-700 target this year
- Today: 30 containers/month, 200K monthly sales, R$ 80-90 average ticket, and R$ 20M/month revenue
- Freight exploded: from R$ 1,000 to R$ 7,000/container — an extra R$ 36K per unit with taxes
- Fix: long route (60-90 days via Europe) costs R$ 600-700 less per container + inventory cut from 150-160 to 90 days
- Mercado Livre accounts for 40% of revenue (Shopee 30%, Amazon declining) — price regulation forces equality across platforms
Container freight went from R$ 1,000 to R$ 7,000 in a few months — yet the operation keeps shipping 30 containers a month. The Ecommerce Puro case shows how a R$ 20M/month Mercado Livre operation handles China imports at scale: 39 containers at sea, 200K monthly sales, and a margin that demands full supply-chain control.
The scale in numbers
The trajectory is a growth study: 1 container in 2022 (test), 117 in 2023, 498 in 2024, and a 600-700 target this year. Today it's 30 containers/month, with 150-160 days of inventory that the operation wants to cut to 75-90. The average ticket is R$ 80-90, and monthly revenue exceeds R$ 20 million.
Freight as the villain (and the long route as the fix)
The freight spike is the moment's big villain: from R$ 1,000 to R$ 7,000 per container, an extra R$ 36K per unit (with taxes), which multiplied by 30 containers creates a multi-million cash gap. The answer was clever: use the long route (60-90 days at sea, via Europe), which costs R$ 600-700 less per container — and cut inventory time in Brazil from 150-160 to 90 days, freeing cash.
Marketplaces: risk concentration
Revenue is concentrated: Mercado Livre accounts for 40% (Shopee 30%, Amazon declining). ML's price regulation forces equal pricing across platforms — which hurts competitiveness on Amazon. The lesson: whoever scales on marketplaces needs to import to sustain margins, but importing alone isn't enough; you must master the whole chain, from supplier to container.
Why it matters
The case exposes what few show: the real cash flow of importing at scale, the impact of international freight, and marketplace dependence. For Brazilian retail, where e-commerce margins shrink, importing with chain control is the frontier between surviving and scaling.