In recent years, the development of e-commerce has spurred the emergence of numerous new forms of gig employment. However, due to the limited availability of data on these new employment types, there has been little research on the impact of e-commerce on gig employment. To investigate the effect of e-commerce on gig wages and its underlying mechanisms, gig recruitment data from online part-time job platforms were collected and matched with city-level e-commerce demonstration enterprise data released by the Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China. The empirical analysis shows that e-commerce development significantly elevates local gig wage levels, and this conclusion remains valid after accounting for endogeneity issues and conducting a series of robustness checks. Mechanism analysis indicates that firm agglomeration effects and the enhancement of entrepreneurial activity are two crucial channels through which e-commerce development promotes gig wage growth. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that the positive impact of e-commerce on gig wages is more pronounced in e-commerce-related jobs and regions with higher economic development. Therefore, local governments should strengthen the construction of e-commerce industrial parks by optimizing industrial layouts, offering tax incentives and financial support, and continuously improving the entrepreneurial environment to increase flexible employment opportunities, and adjusting the policies according to the regional economic development level to foster the high-quality development of both e-commerce and the gig economy.