Bunjang accelerates global expansion with borderless strategy

Pages of Bungaejangter's overseas platform, Global Bunjang / Courtesy of Bungaejangter

Bungaejangter, a local secondhand marketplace also known as Bunjang, is advancing its global expansion rapidly through a borderless strategy, leveraging innovative partnerships and technology to redefine the cross-border resale experience.

Under the leadership of Gong Yoo-hyeon, the company’s head of product & business, Bunjang is emerging as a trailblazer in the international secondhand market.

The company’s global business strategy is centered on achieving borderless transactions. Rather than diverting to direct overseas expansion or extensive localization, Bunjang has chosen a faster and more flexible approach to global markets through Global Bunjang, providing overseas users a platform to access and purchase secondhand items from the Korean market.

Bungaejangter Head of Product & Business, Gong Yoo-hyeon / Courtesy of Bungaejangter

“The Global Bunjang platform is our dedicated global domain for overseas users, operated in partnership with the proxy company Delivered Korea. Powered by a deep learning-based large language model trained on extensive socio-cultural data, Global Bunjang features advanced AI technology capable of understanding and responding to natural language —making it easy for global users to search, browse and purchase Korean products without language barriers,” Gong told The Korea Times in a recent written interview.

The company’s borderless approach is based on three pillars: enhancing its dedicated global platform, forging strategic collaborations with major international players and expanding channels for outbound sales.

An exclusive partnership with Japan’s largest secondhand e-commerce platform, Mercari, has been a game changer for Bunjang.

The landmark partnership, signed in June last year, has been allowing Bunjang users to access Japanese luxury and rare vintage items via a dedicated Mercari tab on Bunjang’s platform, while Mercari users can also purchase Bunjang items through its app.

“After the partnership, transaction volume and count surged more than 35-fold in just eight months,” Gong noted.

The company’s global strategy also extends to multiple channels, leveraging the application's programming interface to automatically list and sell Bunjang’s products on other international platforms. This enables seamless exposure for the sellers on its platform, effectively broadening its global user reach while minimizing fixed costs.

Bunjang has completed integration with 13 global sales channels, including the United States’ eBay, Russia’s Joom, Japan’s Doorzo and Korea’s Harumio and Kfriday. The transaction volume and count for these channels has grown by 30 percent on average.

“Instead of building separate platforms or localizing for each country or region, Bunjang has chosen to quickly enter new markets by integrating with global platforms that already have an established customer base and strong localization,” Gong said.

“Languages, payment methods and privacy regulations all differ by country. So rather than customizing the platform for each of these requirements, we believe it is much more efficient and less risky to collaborate with platforms that are already operating stably in each region and connect their products to those platforms.”

K-pop related merchandise sold on Bungaejangter / Courtesy of Bungaejangter

Gong shared that as of this May, Bunjang’s overseas transaction volume and counts have both increased more than 44 times compared to October 2024, demonstrating the effectiveness of this borderless approach.

Since launching its own international service, Global Bunjang, in July 2023, the company has seen remarkable growth, with the user base increasing by 131 percent in a year. Transaction volume grew by 63 percent and count by 46 percent last year alone.

The service’s growth is fueled by the global popularity of K-culture. About 70 percent of global transactions involve celebrity merchandise, with 30 percent of it being K-pop photo cards.

Limited edition photo cards often spike in price significantly and have attracted international buyers not just as second-hand items but also as assets for investment. The highest recorded sale was BTS member Jimin’s photo card, which sold for about 3 million won ($2,170) in the U.S.

To respond to growing global demand, the company has been making efforts in terms of its technology, reducing translation costs to one-tenth with a self-developed solution and implementing an AI-based image detector.

Generative AI automatically detects and selects products suitable for overseas channels, streamlining the listing process and minimizing manual intervention. An AI-based image detection system also assesses listed products to minimize confusion for buyers, such as multiple photo cards displayed in one image for a single photo card sales listing, which were previously handled manually by staff.

To address cultural and language barriers, the company provides a K-Wiki service that explains commonly used cultural terms and references, making it easier for international users to navigate and understand products.

“We are focused on revitalizing outbound sales from the domestic market. The company has a strong advantage with its selection of rare items and competitive pricing. And by applying these strengths to the global market, Bunjang’s key goals are to secure broader exposure for our products and accelerate sales,” Gong said, adding that the company will sequentially introduce additional services to cater to the growing demand for K-content.

Pictures of Netflix's hit film "KPop Demon Hunters" merchandise sold on Bungaejangter / Courtesy of Bungaejangter

Looking ahead, Bunjang's vision is to dominate the local cross-border resale market, building an environment that people around the world can trust and easily purchase second-hand goods from Korea.

The company is prioritizing platform enhancements, with plans to introduce its own user registration and login features within Global Bunjang. Currently, user authentication and payments on the platform are handled through its partner, Delivered Korea, making it difficult to track the browsing history or preference data of overseas users.

Building on its achievement of signing partnerships with major global e-commerce companies in the first half of this year, the company plans to strengthen its platform’s efficiency and global integration systems by utilizing its own AI technology in the latter half of this year.

“In the case of Japan, the cross-border e-commerce ecosystem has been established since the early 2000s, led by platforms such as Yahoo! Japan, Rakuten and Mercari. However, Korea’s market is still in its infancy, presenting significant potential for growth as it begins to take shape,” Gong said, adding the company is leveraging the growing trend of K-culture and demand for its goods.

“Based on our diverse and extensive product lineup, advanced technological capabilities and years of experience in the market, the company is committed to creating a trusted environment that ensures a seamless and reliable shopping experience for international buyers.”