WeMakePrice and Coupang to lead online retailing
WeMakePrice CEO Park Eun-sang / Courtesy of WeMakePrice
By Kim Jae-heun
It has only been 10 years ago since Coupang and WeMakePrice were established in May and September 2010, respectively, as social commerce firms based on smartphone application services.
There was a start-up boom that saw about 500 venture companies set up then, but only a few survived and they are prospering these days thanks to the growing popularity of the contactless consumption trend.
Coupang's biggest strength was its quick delivery service. Their slogan reading, “Make your order today and get your item tomorrow,” showed Coupang was the company making the fastest deliveries here.
Starting last year, Coupang started a membership program called “Rocket Wow” that delivers customers' orders overnight, putting their parcel in front of their door before 7 a.m. for a monthly charge of 2,900 won ($2.42).
Coupang Founder and CEO Kim Bom said earlier this year that he wanted to make a world in which people could not live without his firm and he is on track to realize his dream.
According to research released by mobile data analyzing platform Mobile Index in April, Coupang tops the list of firms with the biggest number of average daily visitors on a monthly basis.
An average of 3.97 million people used Coupang every day two months ago.
It was also picked as the most favorite shopping application for android phone users here among all age groups in May. A total of 13.49 million people used Coupang in the first quarter, which dwarfed the 6.79 million of flea market application Danggeun Market and the 6.04 million of e-commerce firm Eleven Street.
Meanwhile, WeMakePrice has been focusing on offering the cheapest prices to customers.
Its “Hot Deal” marketing strategy, offering special prices for certain items, has attracted customers regularly to improve its gross merchandise volume from 1.6 trillion won in 2014 to 6.4 trillion won last year. It has been making an average of 1 trillion won more every year.
Starting from second half of last year, WeMakePrice has been offering the cheapest prices for most items sold on its platform, not just Hot Deal products. It also promised to recruit 1,000 more merchandisers to bring the best prices for customers in the market.
At Korean e-commerce firms, merchandisers manage everything from selecting the items to deciding on the quality and quantity of the product they will purchase and their prices.
Apart from this, WeMakePrice has been compensating customers who paid more for items they purchased on its platform if other e-commerce firms offered a better price. Such a program builds customer loyalty and trust that they are shopping at the best prices.
“The essence of retailing is to supply products at a reasonable price,” a WeMakePrice official Lee Ha-neul said. “We will use our knowhow of finding the cheapest price for grocery products too and soon offer the best deal for all items sold on our platform.”