Kurly, Coupang face complaints about declining quality of overnight deliveries

Market Kurly's delivery vehicle is parked in front of the company's logistics center in this television commercial scene. Korea Times file

By Kim Jae-heun

Kurly, Coupang, Oasis and other e-commerce companies are facing growing consumer complaints about the deteriorating quality of overnight delivery services amid soaring demand, according to industry analysts, Thursday.

Kurly, an operator of the online grocery platform Market Kurly, was the first one to start overnight delivery, followed by Coupang and Oasis. After the three firms grew explosively with the service, which people found particularly indispensable during the pandemic, even more firms such as Naver Shopping, SSG.com and other local home shopping companies began to make deliveries in the morning.

The size of the overnight delivery market in Korea reached 1 trillion won by 2018 and is expected to grow to 11.9 trillion won by next year. More e-commerce firms plan to offer the service.

However, soaring demand for overnight delivery services has resulted in a shortage of manpower in the local logistics industry and a growing number of consumers have been receiving orders late recently.

“Last month, I ordered fresh food from Market Kurly before midnight and it arrived the next day, in the evening. I needed the food ingredients in order to cook breakfast for my family but I couldn't,” 34-year-old housewife Kim said. “I have been using Market Kurly because of its overnight delivery service, but if they continue to send orders late, I don't have to use it.”

Another consumer who used Coupang Fresh also experienced the same problem.

“I ordered fruit from Coupang a day before and they arrived the next day in the afternoon. I was going to bring it to my friend's housewarming party but I couldn't because my order came late,” 33-year-old Jeon said.

According to the Korea Consumer Agency, 21.5 percent of the 144 complaints were filed regarding overnight delivery services arriving late between 2018 and 2020. In Korea, only one from among the top six e-commerce firms came up with compensation measures for late deliveries.

Kurly said it is unaware of the problem as there have not been many complaints submitted to the company directly.

“We will look into the issue and make sure our customers get their purchases on time,” a Kurly official said.

SSG.com and G-Market have not received complaints yet because they just started their overnight delivery services.

“It is good that consumers have more options to choose from when they want to shop for grocery items with the overnight delivery service. But e-commerce firms have to make sure that their delivery makes it on time first and not only focus on expanding the service across the country,” said a retail industry official, who declined to be named.