Been digging into the retail space lately and honestly, there's some solid opportunities if you know where to look. Most people focus on tech, but some of the best growth stories are hiding in plain sight right now.

Let me break down three e-commerce stocks that caught my attention this month.

First up is Amazon. Yeah, I know everyone talks about it, but here's what's actually interesting - the operating leverage they're squeezing out of their e-commerce business is wild. They've deployed over a million robots across their warehouses coordinated by AI, and it's starting to show. North American operating income jumped 24% while sales only grew 10%, which tells you something about efficiency gains. Meanwhile AWS is accelerating with 24% growth last quarter and they're ramping capex for 2026 data centers. This is the kind of margin expansion story that compounds over time.

Then there's MercadoLibre - honestly one of the most underrated retail growth plays out there. They've been growing revenue 30% or more every quarter for the past seven years. 45% growth last quarter alone. What makes them different is they're basically doing the Amazon playbook in Latin America but with better logistics positioning. They're using AI to drive ad revenue and attract higher-value merchants. But the real kicker is their fintech arm. Mercado Pago has evolved from a payment tool into a full financial services platform tapping into South America's massive unbanked population. Monthly active users, assets under management, credit card adoption - all climbing. Stock's been down this year because they're in investment mode, which actually creates an interesting entry point.

And then Chewy. This one's interesting because it's boring in the best way possible. Over 80% of sales come from autoship customers spending around 600 bucks a year on pet food and necessities. That's incredibly sticky revenue. But they're not just coasting - sales grew 8.4% through the first nine months of their fiscal year. They're expanding gross margins through higher-margin ad business, a new paid membership program, and private-label pet food and medicine. Trading at 16.5x forward earnings, the market's sleeping on the combination of growth and operating leverage here.

If you're looking at a list of e-commerce stocks in the US right now, these three offer different angles - Amazon for scale and margin expansion, MercadoLibre for emerging market growth, Chewy for defensive growth with valuation upside. Worth keeping on your radar.