Coupang hit for selling expired cooking oil

One of two bottles of cooking oil purchased at Coupang shows it expired on June 9, 2005. Screen-captured from online community website

Coupang accused of lax inspection of returned products

By Kim Jae-heun

Korea's largest online retailer has come under fire for allegedly selling a bottle of cooking oil that expired more than 16 years ago. Coupang said it has launched an internal investigation into the allegation.

A customer photographed the label on the bottle showing the expiry date and posted it on an internet community website, recently. The label shows that the product expired as of June 9, 2005. The customer claimed that Coupang placed a notice on the item saying that only the container box was damaged, while the cooking oil was suitable for use.

“I ordered two bottles of cooking oil on Coupang and one of them had expired in 2005. If I had not checked and used it to cook my meal, something horrible could have happened,” the customer wrote online.

“The controversial cooking oil had been sent off from our warehouse that opened in 2018. There is no chance that an item that expired in 2005 would have been stocked at our fulfillment center,” a Coupang official said.

People are showing mixed opinions over the allegation, but the a seem to be placing the blame on Coupang.

“Something terrible could've happened if the person did not check the expiration date. Coupang should thoroughly check the returned products,” one person wrote on the online community website.

However, this also led to suspicions that a different customer may have abused Coupang's return policy by intentionally sending back an expired bottle of cooking oil after receiving a new one, and the returned bottle was then sent off to a new purchaser. If this is true, Coupang will face another backlash for not properly inspecting refunded or returned items.

“This is nonsense. Coupang was founded in 2010. It could not have sold a bottle of cooking oil that was manufactured in 2005. Somebody sent back a bottle of cooking oil on purpose that had been sitting in their kitchen for over a decade. Still, it is Coupang's mistake,” another observer said.

The online retailer was involved in a similar incident in February.

A paid-membership customer of Coupang purchased two MacBook laptops and sent back a box containing iron plates weighing the same as the electronic device. Coupang failed to inspect the returned box and resold it to a different customer. This case went viral online, sounding the alarm on loopholes in the online retailer's return policy.

For paid members, Coupang offers full refunds on returned items as long as they are sent back less than 30 days after purchase.

The online retailer attracted a large number of customers thanks to such customer-friendly policies, but it is also feeling the side effects. Coupang now faces a dilemma over applying stricter return policies.

Coupang became Korea's second-most-used e-commerce firm after Naver in the third quarter of this year. According to market researcher Wiseapp on Tuesday, customers spent 24.6 trillion won on Coupang's platform during the first nine months of this year, up 57 percent year-on-year.