As customers post membership cancellation screenshots on social media and online communities following the leak of Coupang's customer personal information, rival e-commerce companies such as Naver Shopping and SSG.com are eyeing a windfall.
According to the retail industry on the 7th, Naver in Sep. launched the Kurly N Mart service on Naver Plus Store, starting fresh grocery delivery in partnership with Kurly. Kurly N Mart's transaction amount saw sales in Oct., one month after launch, rise more than 50%. More than 80% of buyers used Naver Plus membership. While supplementing the fresh grocery category with Kurly's infrastructure, it moved to attract customers by offering new subscribers discounts of up to 15,000 won.
It is also aggressively expanding shopping promotions such as "Gang Sale" and "Direct Purchase N Week." A Naver official said, "This is not being carried out because of the Coupang incident, but we have recently been actively running promotions to strengthen service competitiveness," adding, "There is also a mood across the industry to closely inspect customer information security." A Kurly official said, "We do overnight delivery for food, but because Coupang's non-food sales are large, new inflows are likely to come to Kurly N Mart and Naver Smart Store rather than our own mall."
Naver, responding to Coupang's Rocket Delivery, reorganized the "delivery guarantee" service introduced early this year into "N Delivery" and strengthened delivery services such as the quick commerce "Deliver Now," which delivers within an hour. Recently, Naver Plus membership partnered with Netflix and Spotify, also moving to counter Coupang's online video service (OTT), Coupang Play.
SSG.com is preparing to launch a new in-house membership in Jan. next year with enhanced grocery benefits. The plan is to concentrate benefits in groceries, a category with differentiated product competitiveness through synergy with Emart. Based on Emart's offline stores, SSG.com operates "SSG daytime delivery," which allows same-day receipt for most regions nationwide if ordered by 1–2 p.m. It also offers "SSG overnight delivery," which delivers by 7 a.m. the next day for orders placed by 10–11 p.m. in major metropolitan cities and special-case cities. An SSG.com official said, "There has not yet been a significant, meaningful increase in sales after the Coupang personal information leak," but added, "The new membership launching next year will be key to strengthening customer benefits. We will also regularize grocery shopping promotions to increase perceived benefits for customers."
Gmarket has said it will invest 500 billion won annually to reduce sellers' cost burdens and boost competitiveness. Starting next year, it plans to introduce quick delivery services together with Emart.
However, some note that the functions consumers rely on most at Coupang are "immediate and overnight delivery," represented by Rocket Delivery and Rocket Fresh. There are also projections that a perfect replacement will be difficult because other platforms have not properly built systems to substitute for these.
An e-commerce industry official said, "We are detecting signs of consumers moving platforms in the wake of the Coupang incident," adding, "E-commerce companies also see this as an opportunity and are moving to strengthen the competitiveness of membership benefits and promotions."