For years, U.S. and Canadian retailers treated customer service like a cost to be cut—something to offshore as far away as possible, then pray the accent wasn’t too thick, and the 12-hour time-zone delay didn’t kill CSAT. Then e-commerce exploded, returns got complicated, social commerce blew up, and customers started expecting answers in their own time zone, accent, and cultural nuance.
The brands that figured out the nearshore advantage first are now the ones laughing all the way through peak season while their onshore-only competitors scramble with seasonal hiring nightmares.
Why Nearshore Beats Farshore in 2026
Latin America isn’t just cheaper—it’s better for North American retail. Same or overlapping time zones, near-native English (especially with Gen Z and millennial agents), and a work ethic that routinely beats onshore CSAT scores by 4–8 points. The region now handles over 28% of all outsourced retail interactions for U.S. and Canadian brands, growing 18–22% year-over-year (Everest Group & Nearshore Americas).
El Salvador: The Cultural Twin Everyone Sleeps On
Retail contact center services in El Salvador have become the gold standard for brands that need U.S.-aligned hours without U.S. pricing. San Salvador and Santa Tecla centers routinely deliver 92–96% CSAT for fashion, beauty, and consumer-electronics clients, with agents who grew up watching the same Netflix shows, listening to the same Spotify playlists, and shopping the same Black Friday sales as the customers they serve.
One major U.S. beauty brand moved 60% of its volume to San Salvador in 2023 and saw AHT drop 18% because agents “got” the customer from the first sentence.
Belize: The Purest English You’ll Find Offshore
A retail contact center in Belize offers some of the purest North American English in the outsourcing world—thanks to an education system built on British and American models, plus a population that grows up effortlessly code-switching. U.S. retailers in sporting goods, home improvement, and outdoor categories love the seamless accent and the fact that agents finish at 6 p.m. CST, right when West Coast shoppers are hitting “submit order.”
One outdoor retailer reports their Belize team consistently scores 4.9/5 on “agent sounded like my neighbor” surveys—higher than their Denver headquarters team.
Colombia: Scale, Sophistication, and Retail DNA
Retail BPO in Colombia now supports everything from basic order tracking to complex loyalty programs, fraud investigations, and virtual styling sessions for some of the biggest names in North American retail.
Medellín and Bogotá alone have over 180,000 bilingual seats, and the talent pool keeps growing because CX jobs are now the cool, stable career path—complete with free English classes, gym memberships, and on-site baristas.
A Top-50 U.S. apparel brand moved its entire returns operation to Medellín last year and cut processing time from 11 days to under 3, while boosting satisfaction by 14 points.
The Hybrid Model That Wins Peak Season
Smart retailers now run a blended nearshore playbook:
- English-first volume → Belize
- Spanish-first & bilingual surge → El Salvador
- Complex back-office & analytics → Colombia
When a viral moment hits, they spin up 2,000 extra agents across the region in under 48 hours instead of the 6–8 weeks it takes onshore.
The Math That Ended the Debate
Nearshore Latin American teams cost 40–65% less than U.S. equivalents, deliver equal or higher quality, and—most importantly—never make a California customer wait until Manila wakes up or force a Toronto shopper to explain hockey slang to someone who’s never seen ice.
In 2026, the most innovative North American retailers aren’t asking “Should we go nearshore?” They’re asking which combination of El Salvador, Belize, and Colombia gives them the perfect mix of cost, culture, coverage, and capacity to own peak season rather than survive it.
