Repeat customer spending increased by up to 229%. How did South Korea's TMON win by relying on "time"?

According to Korean media reports, a survey result shows that since the Korean e-commerce platform TMON began to implement the " Time Commers " strategy of selling goods at discounts in seconds and minutes , the consumption of repeat customers on the platform has increased significantly.

TMON announced on the 24th that based on sales in the third week from January to March this year , the average purchase amount of customers who made repeated purchases more than twice increased by about 70% compared with the same period in 2018 before the introduction of Time Commers.

The biggest increase in spending was among returning customers in their teens . Looking at the average purchase amount of returning customers by age group , teenagers in their teens saw the highest increase, reaching 229%. The average purchase amount of those in their 30s and 40s increased by 50%, and that of the middle-aged and elderly group over 60 increased by 151% .

In addition to the increase in spending, the average monthly usage days of TMON users have also increased. According to Nielsen KoreanClick , the average monthly usage days of users who visited TMON in the fourth quarter of 2020 was 11 days, an increase of 1.4 days from the same period last year . This is the largest increase among the eight major e-commerce companies in South Korea , and the "average monthly usage days" is the highest among domestic e-commerce companies.

TMON analyzed that the reason why customers frequently visit the app and the average purchase amount of returning customers increases is due to the effect of " time transactions . "

Since 2019, TMON has been working to enhance the competitiveness of its platform, unlike other shopping apps, by launching special price stores that sell in seconds and minutes.

For example, there are time-based stores that offer strong discounts in a short period of time, such as "100 Second Attack" (a discount event that must be completed within 100 seconds at 9 am every day) and "10 Minute Attack" (a promotional discount event that only lasts 10 minutes at 10 am), as well as stores that sell specific categories of goods within a specified time, such as "Snack Time", "Children's Time", and "Digital Time". As a result, consumers habitually visit TMON every day , and it eventually becomes a driving force for frequent shopping.

TMON CEO Lee Jin-won said, "We have been leading the era of commerce, launching special deals with absolute advantages, and finally achieved positive results in customer indicators such as repurchase rate. In the future, we will do our utmost to strengthen the competitiveness of the platform and provide a differentiated shopping experience."

South Korea

Purchase amount

Returning Customers