As customer personal information leaks at Coupang lead to a wave of cancellation proofs on social media (SNS) and online communities, e-commerce (electronic commerce) rivals such as Naver Shopping and SSG.com are seeking windfall gains.
According to the retail industry on the 7th, Naver launched the KurlyN Mart service on Naver Plus Store in September. It began fresh food delivery in partnership with Kurly. KurlyN Mart's transaction amount saw sales grow more than 50% in October, one month after launch. More than 80% of buyers were using the Naver Plus Membership. By supplementing the fresh food category with Kurly's infrastructure and offering up to 15,000 won in discounts to new subscribers, it moved to attract customers.
Shopping promotions such as "Gang Sale" and "Direct Purchase N Week" are also being actively expanded. A Naver official said, "This is not being carried out because of the Coupang situation, but we have recently been actively running promotions to strengthen service competitiveness," adding, "There is also a mood across the industry to thoroughly inspect customer information security." A Kurly official said, "We do fresh food dawn delivery, but because Coupang's non-food sales are large, new inflows are likely to come to KurlyN Mart and Naver Smart Store rather than our own mall."
To counter Coupang's Rocket Delivery, Naver reorganized the "arrival guarantee" service introduced early this year into "N Delivery" and strengthened delivery services such as the quick commerce "Deliver Now," which delivers within one hour. Recently, it also partnered Naver Plus Membership with Netflix and Spotify to respond to Coupang's Coupang Play online video service (OTT).
SSG.com is preparing to launch a new in-house membership in January next year with enhanced grocery (food) benefits. The plan is to concentrate benefits on the grocery segment, which has differentiated product competitiveness through synergy with Emart. Based on Emart's offline stores, SSG.com operates "SSG daytime delivery," which allows most regions nationwide to receive same-day delivery for orders placed by 1–2 p.m. In major metropolitan and special cities, it also offers "SSG dawn delivery," which delivers by 7 a.m. the next day for orders placed by 10–11 p.m. An SSG.com official said, "Since the Coupang personal information leak, we have not yet seen a significant and meaningful increase in sales," but added, "The new membership launching next year will be the key to strengthening customer benefits. We also plan to make grocery shopping promotions routine to increase perceived benefits for customers."
Gmarket has said it will invest 500 billion won annually to reduce sellers' cost burdens and build competitiveness. Starting next year, it plans to introduce quick delivery services together with Emart.
However, some say the function consumers rely on most at Coupang is "immediate and dawn delivery," represented by Rocket Delivery and Rocket Fresh, and since other platforms have not properly established systems to replace this, a complete replacement will be difficult.
An e-commerce industry official said, "Signs of consumers moving platforms are being detected due to the Coupang situation," adding, "E-commerce companies are also viewing this as an opportunity and moving to strengthen the competitiveness of membership benefits and promotions."