What is Coupang? Coupang Review, Features

Coupang is an e-commerce company headquartered in Seoul, South Korea. It was founded by Bom Kim in 2010.

The origin of Coupang

Does Coupang look very similar to Groupon, the American group buying website? In fact, they do have a lot in common. The founder of Coupang first copied Groupon's model, but it seems that this road did not last long. Later, it successfully borrowed Amazon's model to transform into a pure e-commerce website.

Coupang means "interesting" in Korean. Coupang is an e-commerce company that attaches great importance to UX experience. It has transitioned from group buying to comprehensive e-commerce services, focusing on customer purchasing experience.

About Coupang

· As one of the most popular group buying websites in South Korea, Coupang has 315,000 monthly UVs, more than 20 million users, and sales of more than 2 billion US dollars. Moreover, Coupang often invites popular Korean stars to endorse, which brings a very good fan effect. Half of the people in South Korea have installed their APP on their mobile phones, and the valuation has exceeded 5 billion US dollars. The characteristics of Coupang are fast logistics and short delivery time. It is one of the fastest growing platforms in South Korea's e-commerce platforms and can be said to be a future star.

Initially, Coupang tried to provide daily service transactions, but soon expanded to selling physical goods with partners. Today, Coupan sells a variety of goods.

Main Products

Coupang’s product categories are very rich, including electronics, beauty products, consumer goods, books, baby products, household items, decoration, fashion, toys, sporting goods, tickets, travel and cultural event planning, etc.

Platform Features

1. Coupang values ​​service and has put a lot of effort into experience and operations. For example, Korean consumers like to call for consultation before online shopping, so Coupang has equipped high-quality customer service staff for this purpose.

2. Coupang often gathers various experience personnel to personally experience a certain product, and then write down their own experience, so as to better analyze from the customer's perspective and enhance customers' trust in the website and products.

3. Coupang takes mobile terminals as the first starting point for all development and optimization.

4. Coupang also pays attention to the establishment of a credit system for merchants: signing contracts is the main focus, with consumers as the primary consideration.

Advantages of Sellers

Coupang is a top-level e-commerce website in South Korea with a wide range of categories. As of 2018, the website has more than 25 million registered members. In 2017 and 2018, Coupang APP was rated as the most popular shopping APP in South Korea. The number of daily active mobile users of Coupang website is three times that of the second place. Currently, Coupang's market valuation has increased to US$9 billion, ranking among the top ten in Asia. Currently, Coupang's annual growth rate is close to 70%, which is three times the growth rate of the Korean e-commerce market. It also has huge advantages in delivery timeliness, security, and service.

1. Delivery timeliness:

Coupang's self-operated sales model provides self-operated products that customers order before 12 o'clock at night and will arrive the next day, including Saturdays and Sundays. This is its "Rocket Delivery". Recently, Coupang has launched a new service - "Coupang Fresh Dawn Delivery", which ensures that customers' orders placed in the middle of the night will be delivered on time at 7 o'clock in the morning; for perishable products and organic products, it ensures that the products are delivered within a few hours after the customer purchases.

In addition, Coupang's electronic payment platform is also among the best in South Korea. It is a simple and fast one-click payment. Consumers who use this electronic payment can get a 2% cash back, which can effectively improve consumer satisfaction.

2. Security:

Efficient payment system and backend operation platform, while supporting various API connections.

3. Services:

One-on-one e-commerce consultant service to help solve any problems and increase sales (Chinese service supported).

4. Customer Service Team:

The professional and efficient customer service team helps sellers solve orders or customer issues in a timely manner.

Sellers’ Guide

1. Entry conditions

(1) Enterprises registered in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan;

(2) Have experience in cross-border e-commerce sales and have a certain number of SKUs;

(3) A public account that can receive RMB, USD, HKD or KRW;

(4) Application materials include business license, legal person identification certificate, bank account statement and store link on existing platforms;

(5) The Seller shall cooperate with courier companies that can provide cross-border mailing services, provide delivery tracking numbers to Buyers, and provide return and exchange services to Buyers.

2. Open categories

Consumer electronics, electrical appliances, computers and mobile phones, fashion, beauty and skin care products, kitchen supplies, furniture, sports, pet supplies and other categories.

3. Products prohibited from sale

Alcohol, tobacco, drugs, pirated CDs, etc.; products that infringe intellectual property rights such as imitations, disclosure of other people's information; dirty things, real estate, gift certificates, etc. In addition, posting false, defamatory, and deceptive advertisements on Coupang is also not allowed. Similarly, it is not allowed to make unfair comparisons between multiple products to show the superiority of one's own products.

4. Settlement Fees

No initial configuration fee & platform monthly rent;

Commission: Product commissions range from 5% to 10% of monthly sales, depending on the product category. Commissions are settled monthly, and the platform will deduct them from the seller's monthly sales.

For example, in the household electronic digital category, air conditioners, cameras, and flat-screen TVs account for 5%, clothing accounts for 10%, cosmetics accounts for 9%, and electronic games accounts for 6%.

5. Settlement Date

The settlement date is calculated based on when the customer places the final payment for the order.

6. Logistics issues

Logistics method: The seller can choose the logistics method.

Logistics time: It is best to deliver within 3-7 days. If the time is longer, please indicate it on the listing.

Logistics costs: Sellers can follow up on the actual logistics time and freight setting template in the background.

7. Other matters needing attention

System connection method, ERP: It is best to use API.

Listing upload: API or CSV file upload.

Product description requirements: Korean.

Product pricing currency: Korean Won.

SKU quantity requirement: None.

Account opening time: If all the information is complete, it will be opened within 1 week.

Store opening process

1. Enter business authorization and account information, 10-digit business registration number, and click Verify Business (blue).

Note: Sellers need to prepare: mail order form, copy of representative/business personnel information, personal/work seal integer.

2. Fill in the basic information in order.

3. Click the first blue button in the pop-up dialog box, upload the materials required by the Coupang platform, and finally enter the Coupang seller backend.

How to Become a Successful Seller on Coupang

1. Products

The products sold on the website must be carefully selected and optimized by you. It is recommended to upload more products on Coupang. In addition, Coupang will regularly send emails to sellers, which will include products that customers have searched for but are not sold by sellers on the platform.

2. Inventory

Make sure you have enough inventory, maintain the inventory according to the inventory status of your products, or choose products that are easy to sell and have sufficient inventory on a reliable drop shipping platform for drop shipping.

3. Price advantage

Many customers will give up payment after viewing the final cost including shipping, so the final price often determines whether the transaction can be completed. Sellers can reduce the occurrence of payment abandonment by free shipping and reducing costs. A survey shows that if free shipping is set, sales can increase by an average of 32% and the number of visitors can increase by 38%.

4. Search

Are the correct words used in the title and description? SEO optimization strategies are fully applied in Coupang. Is the category correct? Are all search and purchase options set? Fully displaying the features of the product will attract more potential customers.

5. Delivery time

Too long delivery time will wear out customers' patience. Without affecting store indicators, you can try to shorten the delivery time as much as possible. Setting up an overseas warehouse in the local market or choosing a drop shipping website with an overseas warehouse in the local market can reduce a lot of trouble.

6. Inquiry

For customer inquiries, you must respond promptly and in a friendly manner. A good business image can retain new customers and win over old customers.

Development History

-In 2010, Coupang was founded.

-In 2011, Coupang released apps for iPhone and Android. As of August 2013, mobile phone consumption accounted for more than half of the company's total sales and about 70% of the total website traffic.

-As of May 2012, Coupang had approximately 700 employees, 12 million users, and 25,000 merchants.

-In October 2012, Coupang was included in Business Insider's list of the world's top 100 most valuable private technology companies.

-In 2013, Coupang's annual sales exceeded US$1 billion.

-In 2014, Coupang completed two rounds of financing, raising a total of US$400 million from well-known investment institutions including American private fund BlackRock and Sequoia Capital.

-In June 2015, the company received a US$1 billion investment from Japan’s SoftBank.

-In April 2016, Coupang was selected as one of the “Top 30 Global Innovators of 2016” by Forbes.

-In December 2017, Coupang's revenue exceeded US$2.5 billion, a year-on-year increase of 40%, and sales in the fourth quarter increased by 60% year-on-year.

-In November 2018, Coupang received an additional $2 billion investment from SoftBank Vision Fund.