The war is gradually igniting! Major Korean e-commerce platforms continue to increase logistics investment

The current situation of South Korea's e-commerce market is that more and more e-commerce platforms are competing to provide early morning delivery services outside Seoul to win the nationwide express delivery war.

Shinsegae Group's online retail platform SSG.com has started expanding its Dawn Express service in several major cities in northern and southern Chungcheong Province this week . The company said it plans to expand the service to other parts of South Korea in the future . This is also the first time the platform has provided the service outside the Seoul metropolitan area.

But as of now, Coupang, a purely Korean e-commerce platform second only to Naver, is still the only e-commerce platform in South Korea that can provide morning delivery services nationwide.

This is also inseparable from Coupang's heavy investment. This year alone, Coupang has invested more than 1 trillion won (873.9 million U.S. dollars) in distribution centers across South Korea, including North Jeolla, South Gyeongsang, North Chungcheong and Busan. According to the company, the total size of the distribution centers is equivalent to 100 football fields.

As the top 1 in the Korean e-commerce market , Naver has also built a new platform for about 450,000 sellers on its smart store platform, aiming to reduce the logistics management burden of small and medium-sized sellers and provide third-party warehouse services for preparing and delivering store orders.

The platform, called Naver Fulfillment Alliance, brings together a number of Korean logistics and delivery companies, including CJ Logistics, OurBox, WeKeep, Fassto, Poomgo and Dealibird, to provide transportation and delivery solutions for the platform's many small and medium-sized sellers.

On the platform, sellers can find and select delivery partners suitable for their product types and plan logistics processes and costs in advance. Naver also plans to use its artificial intelligence technology that can predict demand and provide better solutions to support fulfillment service providers, including short-distance delivery companies.

Market Kurly, an online grocery startup that first introduced the concept of "early morning delivery" in South Korea , received 225.4 billion won in funding in its Series F round. The company also announced plans to expand its early morning delivery range in southern South Korea later this year.

In the post-epidemic era, the importance of the express delivery /logistics industry has further expanded. In order to strengthen core capabilities and ensure new growth momentum, major e-commerce platforms have increased their investment in logistics. We will have to wait and see who will have the last laugh.

South Korea

logistics

express delivery