A survey found that Coupang imposes a heavier expense burden on small and mid-sized businesses than other platforms.
According to the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Enterprises' "2025 survey on the transaction status of small and mid-sized businesses entering online platforms" on the 2nd, 162 small and mid-sized businesses that use Coupang as their main shopping mall paid expenses such as fees to Coupang equal to an average 20.6% of the sales generated on Coupang.
That was 1.8 percentage points higher than the share (18.8%) of expenses paid by those surveyed to their main online shopping mall out of total sales. This share was the second highest after small and mid-sized businesses that transact with Musinsa as their main shopping mall (23.2%). It means small and mid-sized businesses earn on Coupang but hand over a lot in expenses.
Among small and mid-sized businesses transacting with Coupang, the expense items cited as the most burdensome were sales commissions (50.0%), logistics costs (29.0%), and advertising costs (19.8%), in that order.
The period from selling goods on Coupang or a transaction being finalized to receiving settlement payments was also longer than on other shopping malls. Responses saying it takes 51 days or more came in at 34.0%. On other shopping malls, the response rate saying it takes 51 days or more remained in the single digits.
Coupang's intermediary transaction sales commission rate was 14.21%, higher than the overall average (13.82%). In addition, on the question of whether sales increased compared with last year, the average on a 5-point scale (sharply decreased–somewhat decreased–no change–somewhat increased–sharply increased) was only 3.64 points. It ranked fourth among six major shopping malls.
A KBIZ official said, "This survey shows that the level of expenses paid by small and mid-sized businesses transacting with Coupang is high," and added, "If other shopping malls have an expense share of around 10% to 20% of sales, responses were high that Coupang's expenses account for 20% to 30% of sales."