OASIS Market and Kurly, which are competing while positioning themselves as e-commerce platforms specializing in fresh foods, are seeing diverging fortunes. OASIS spent a large sum to acquire TMON but has been unable to relaunch the service, disrupting its business plans. Kurly, by contrast, recently began a collaboration with Naver, laying the groundwork to attract a large customer base, and it has accelerated performance improvement by turning to a profit in the first half.
According to the industry on the 17th, TMON, which OASIS Market acquired in June, initially aimed to resume service in July but has not yet opened its website. The reason is that TMON's past large-scale settlement delay crisis is holding it back. To restart operations, TMON sought to build an online payment system, but opposition and complaints from victims have flooded in, and card companies are reluctant to sign contracts with TMON.
TMON said, "We set Sept. 10 as the opening date and were in the final checks when victims who heard of the impending resumption of operations filed complaints with partner card companies and related agencies, forcing us to face the reality that we had no choice but to delay the opening."
OASIS Market spent 11.6 billion won to acquire TMON. After the acquisition, it invested an additional 50 billion won to improve the financial structure. OASIS Market planned to secure TMON's 4 million to 5 million members and diverse seller infrastructure and leap into a comprehensive e-commerce platform. OASIS has about 2 million members, and it has been regarded as having low recognition in Korea.
Along with the TMON acquisition, OASIS Market moved to aggressively recruit sellers by presenting a sales commission rate of 3% to 5%, among the lowest in the industry. According to the company, TMON has now completed contracts with around 10,000 partner vendors, and 1.2 million products have been listed. However, as the relaunch keeps getting pushed back, OASIS's expense burden and sellers' anxiety are growing.
Due in part to the TMON acquisition, OASIS's profitability is deteriorating. The company posted first-half revenue of 283.9 billion won and operating profit of 9.7 billion won. Revenue rose 8.3% from a year earlier, but operating profit fell 36%. Looking only at the second quarter, revenue rose 13.6% to 148.9 billion won, but operating profit fell 51.5% to 3.5 billion won.
An industry official said, "In an already saturated e-commerce market, you have to flood the field with discount coupons to secure customers early on, sacrificing profitability. Even if TMON resumes service, OASIS Market will have to keep making additional investments."
While OASIS Market is encountering setbacks in its business, Kurly recently opened "Kurly N Mart" on Naver Plus Store and launched service, laying the foundation for expansion. Kurly's core customer base has been concentrated in the greater Seoul area and two-person households, with monthly active users (MAU) stuck around 3 million in recent years. But observers say the partnership with Naver opens an opportunity to attract a large number of customers.
Kurly also introduced some 5,000 items it had not previously handled, such as household goods and kitchenware, as part of joining Naver. By expanding a portfolio that had focused on fresh foods to cover daily life more broadly, it diversified its profit structure.
Kurly posted first-half revenue of 1.1595 trillion won and operating profit of 3.1 billion won this year. Revenue rose 8% from a year earlier, and the company swung to a profit. It is the first time since its founding in 2014 that Kurly has posted an operating profit. Kurly's first-half gross merchandise value (GMV) rose 13.6% to 1.7062 trillion won.
Kim Seul-a, the head of Kurly, said at a Naver Commerce Meetup press briefing on the 9th that "through Kurly N Mart, we have been able to bring in average consumers who did not use Kurly before, as well as family units and customers with bulk-purchase demand."
She added, "Going forward, we plan to solidify our position as a core grocery service within the Naver platform by linking sales of popular Naver Smart Store products and advancing search and personalized recommendation technologies."