"With the launch of a joint venture with Alibaba Group, Gmarket has become a platform that reaches not only Korea but also overseas. We will strengthen global competitiveness and differentiate ourselves from rivals such as Coupang and Naver."
On the morning of the 21st, Gmarket CEO James Zhang held a media day at COEX in Samseong-dong, Seoul, and said this. Zhang said, "Gmarket aims once again to rise to the No. 1 open market in Korea. To that end, we will fully push a mid- to long-term strategy with two pillars: strengthening domestic competitiveness and global expansion."
Shinsegae Group and China's Alibaba Group began collaborating after receiving approval to establish a joint venture from the Fair Trade Commission on the 18th of last month. The joint venture will have Gmarket and AliExpress Korea as subsidiaries. The two companies plan to maintain independent operations while pursuing collaboration.
Zhang said, "Under a new catchphrase of 'global-local market,' Gmarket will become a representative K-commerce platform of Korea."
To strengthen platform competitiveness, Gmarket plans to投入 an annual initial expense of 700 billion won. It will invest 500 billion won per year to support the growth of onboarded sellers and new sellers, and spend 100 billion won per year on customer promotions. It also plans to spend 100 billion won annually on developing AI (artificial intelligence) models to enhance search functions.
The investment funds will be jointly borne by Shinsegae Group and Alibaba Group. Based on this, Gmarket aims to expand its annual gross merchandise volume by more than 100% by 2030 compared with now.
Specifically, Gmarket will invest 350 billion won in direct support programs to promote existing onboarded sellers and boost their sales. It will投入 more than 20 billion won per year—up 50% from before—into policies to foster new sellers and small micro sellers. To help new sellers settle quickly, it also plans to introduce a zero (0) commission system that waives fees for a set period.
In this process, Gmarket will support domestic sellers in expanding their sales channels worldwide. Lee Min-gi, Gmarket's head of seller growth, said, "We plan to build a 'one-stop model' that allows sellers to export products to multiple countries immediately, simply by agreeing to overseas sales while selling goods as usual."
As the first成果 of the Alibaba joint venture, Gmarket has moved to expand overseas sales channels through a partnership with Lazada, Southeast Asia's leading e-commerce company. Lazada is one of Alibaba's global affiliates and has about 160 million customers across five countries—Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines. Gmarket plans to link about 20 million supply items with Lazada and sell them to local customers.
Following its entry into Southeast Asia, Gmarket will gradually expand sales channels to more than 200 countries and regions where Alibaba operates, including Europe, South Asia, South America and the United States. Lee said, "We will not simply open overseas channels for domestic sellers; we will become a business partner that grows alongside sellers."
Gmarket also plans to advance its product search function using AI. Starting next year, it will begin strengthening "multimodal search." Multimodal refers to a method that identifies customer intent by including unstructured data such as feelings or senses in addition to simple text and presents diverse forms of search results. For example, if a customer searches for "running shoes with a soft material," the system will interpret elements such as "softness" and "material" through images and present suitable products.
Gmarket on this day also expressed confidence regarding concerns about customer data leaks that arose during the Fair Trade Commission's approval process for the joint venture. The commission ordered: ▲ technical separation of domestic consumer data between Gmarket/Auction and Alibaba ▲ a ban on mutual data use in the cross-border direct-purchase market ▲ and, in other markets, guaranteeing consumers a substantive choice over data use.
Kim Jeong-woo, head of Gmarket's PX division, said, "Even after the establishment of the joint venture, Gmarket exclusively manages and is responsible for Gmarket's customer information. Big data for AI training is also managed on a separate cloud and is encrypted so individuals cannot be identified. We will maintain world-class information protection."
Gmarket, which was brought under Shinsegae Group in 2021, posted losses for three consecutive years through last year, totaling 164.9 billion won. In the first half of this year, it also logged a loss of 41.9 billion won, up 25.8 billion won from the same period a year earlier, while revenue fell 24.8% to 381.8 billion won.
Gmarket plans to stage a comeback through collaboration with Alibaba Group. Zhang said, "By the end of this year, we will complete the restoration of the platform's fundamentals and basic structural improvements, and finish preparations for a new takeoff," adding, "We will secure new growth engines on the global stage and become an innovative company that delivers the best customer satisfaction by strengthening co-prosperity with sellers."