Amazon Now vs iFood and Mercado Libre

Amazon is entering Brazil ultrafast delivery as a traffic owner, not as a logistics builder. Amazon Now lets Amazon put grocery and household staples inside its own app, while Rappi supplies the couriers, merchant network, and dense city operations underneath. That puts Amazon into the same everyday basket battle as iFood Mercado and Mercado Livre, where winning depends on who can deliver soap, milk, and snacks fast enough to become a weekly habit.

• Amazon Now in Brazil runs as a storefront inside Amazon's app and site, with Prime free delivery and paid delivery for non Prime users. That means Amazon owns the customer relationship and subscription hook, while Rappi does the hard local work of picking, routing, and dispatching in cities like São Paulo and Rio.
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• This is a different playbook from iFood and Mercado Livre. iFood already pushes market, pharmacy, pet, and convenience orders through its app, with same day delivery for most orders and Turbo in some cities at up to 20 minutes. Mercado Livre comes from commerce and logistics, using marketplace demand and same day fulfillment to extend into supermarket and essentials.
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• The economics hinge on density, not branding. Rappi's delivery costs run near 10% of GMV in Latin America because dense neighborhoods and lower labor costs let couriers complete more drops per hour. That is why a global platform like Amazon partners instead of building this stack from scratch, and why grocery and essentials are the natural wedge into a broader daily use app.
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The next phase is a tighter three way race for the recurring household basket in Brazil. If Amazon keeps layering Prime demand onto Rappi's network, grocery becomes the entry point for a broader local commerce position. That will push iFood and Mercado Livre to keep compressing delivery times, widening selection, and bundling more everyday categories into one app habit.