By Kim Ji-soo
Social commerce here has grown rapidly and in volume, and it’s expected to reach 500 billion won in transactions this year. The ads by some of the the nation’s leaders in this sector — Coupang, Ticket Monster and We Make Price — are ubiquitous that even at this moment, a segment of their ads may be flowing through a person’s brain.
A recently published book about one of the leaders, Ticket Monster, is out, providing an interesting inside look into how five 20-somethings started what is now a flourishing business by gathering a multitude of consumers together to offer them products or services at a huge discount.
“We are Ticket Monsters” tells how the five — Shin Hyun-sung or Dan Shin, Shin Seong-yoon or Chris Shin, Kim Dong-hyeon or Tom Kim, Kwon Gi-hyeon and Lee Ji-ho — started out in May 2010 with the idea of offering a coupon on one item a day. In just over a year, the firm grew to its current size of 770 employees and has 3 million members. Also during that time, the firm’s revenue grew from zero to $24 million.
The five all left prestigious jobs at leading consulting firms, or leading local schools like KAIST to found their own business. On the one hand, it’s a savvy story of young entrepreneurs who got their fingers on the pulse.
One incident from the book shows the young founders’ wit in a creative way to a solution. On their 3rd day of business, they offered 300 coupons to a sushi restaurant, a branch of Sakanaya, which sold like hotcakes. The clicks however kept going on and on, while the sushi place owner said he could only accept up to 1,000 customers with coupons.
To defuse a potential raucous on the Internet, the founders took a photo of them holding up their two hands in apology and posted it on their website. That eased away the consumers’ fury at not being able to purchase what they were promised, and Ticket Monster took off.
On the other, it’s a time-tested story of hard work, trial-and-error, and passion in tune with the changing demands of the times.
The book is told in the third-person, and too many names of people and companies appearing can bog down the reader.
But there are interesting pages in between of a fledging firm dealing with organizational, management and funding issues, crisis management, building up trust and communication with colleagues and glimpses of the history of social commerce, both locally and abroad.
The book also details its overseas expansion, the acquiring of Everyday.com.my, a site with the same concept based in Malaysia and its recent signing of a deal with the U.S.-based LivingSocial.
Another side of its rapid growth is that the local social commerce is facing questions about whether it’s only growing in bulk, not in profitability. Also, complaints are heard about the declining quality of the products and the services that the social commerce sites provide. The book leaves the impression that the industry is still evolving and answers to these questions are yet to emerge.