Coupang’s delivery empire built on social trust faces reckoning after data breach
Coupang’s rise in Korea’s online retail market was built not just on technology and speed, but on a culture of social trust, in which valuables left out in public are rarely stolen. Now, as the company, often described as "Korea’s Amazon," faces a major data breach and growing public backlash, it is accused of exploiting that communal trust while underinvesting in data security to protect its margins. In most Korean cities, it’s common to see smartphones and laptops left unattended on café tables, or products displayed outside stores for hours without anyone touching them. Parcels are often left unattended at doorsteps for hours, even days or weeks. That social trust became the foundation of Coupang’s contactless delivery model during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. In dense clusters of urban apartments, with few restrictions on night work and a society comfortable with sharing front-door access codes with delivery workers, the company was able to promise express and dawn delivery services for groceries and daily necessities by 7 a.m., often for orders placed with just a few
