MercadoLibre Is Beating Amazon at Its Own Game

MercadoLibre, Inc. (NASDAQ: MELI), the e-commerce leader in Latin America, was for a time referred to as the "eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) of Latin America," and with good reason. The company was originally modeled after its North American counterpart, connecting buyers and sellers on an auction-type platform. eBay encouraged MercadoLibre to create a payment system -- MercadoPago -- modeled after PayPal, which has been key to the company's recent success. eBay even owned a stake in its Latin American counterpart until recently.

MercadoLibre has evolved over the years, becoming more like Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) by allowing merchants to sell goods and services on its site, and offering a variety of other fulfillment services. Recently the company has taken even more pages straight out of Amazon's playbook by providing technological infrastructure and offering logistics services and even small-business loans.

MercadoLibre offers services business owners can't get anywhere else. Image source: Getty Images.

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Source: Fool.com