Coupang's subscription service receives positive consumer responses

By Jhoo Dong-chan

The country’s leading e-commerce operator Coupang is receiving positive responses from customers for its subscription service amid the increase in the number of one-person households in Korea.

Offering a subscription service for its 11,000 items on its platform, the service suggests product delivery on a monthly basis on the customer's date of choice. And Coupang said that an increasing number of customers are now using the service to buy their daily necessities.

“At first, Coupang’s subscription service was mainly popular for nursery products such as diapers, powdered formula and baby wipes,” a Coupang official said.

Coupang’s subscription service was introduced in March 2015. And it analyzes customers’ expenses to recommend various related products on their regularly scheduled deliveries.

For example, if a customer orders nursery products such as diapers and formula through the regular delivery service, Coupang automatically analyzes the customer’s past demands to recommend other related baby products few months later.

Coupang said it also offers special discounts to its regular customers. If a customer orders one product with a yellow "save" make regularly, it offers a five percent discount for the product. Ordering more than three such products regularly comes with a 10 percent discount.