23 million registered users! Korea's first online second-hand platform Joonggo Nara is sold

While the COVID-19 pandemic has boosted second-hand goods transactions in South Korea, prompting online second-hand trading platforms including Danggeun Market to flourish, Joonggo Nara, the earliest second-hand trading platform in South Korea, has been sold.

"Joonggo Nara, South Korea's first online flea market platform, is about to be sold to Eugene Asset Management , which is considering acquiring 62.87% of the former's common shares," said a source at a South Korean investment bank .

The two sides have been negotiating since the beginning of last year with the goal of reaching a deal , which was recently finalized. Joonggo Nara is currently estimated to be worth around 100 billion won ($87.41 million).

Joonggo Nara had 23 million registered users as of early March. Its cumulative gross merchandise value was 3.9 trillion won as of the third quarter of last year, up from 3.5 trillion won in 2019. During the period, Joonggo Nara 's sales soared 66.1%, but its operating losses also widened to 3.5 billion won.

As the first online second-hand platform in Korea, Joonggo Nara started as a community in 2003. The platform was established in 2013 and was once the largest second-hand goods market in Korea. However, Joonggo Nara has not launched a mobile application since its establishment.

It was not until 2015 when Danggeun Market was established and launched Karrot that Joonggo Nara realized the importance of the app and launched its mobile app in 2016. By then, Joonggo Nara had already fallen behind Danggeun Market .

Although Joonggo Nara has also tried to catch up, it has achieved little success. For example, it has worked hard to expand the variety of products traded on its platform and opened offline stores to sell cars, bicycles and mobile phones. However, the company's car dealership business closed after only one year after failing to meet expectations .

As part of the new consumer culture in Korea, second-hand goods trading has developed rapidly in the past year , and more and more people regard this kind of trading as a "wise and practical" way of consumption. Therefore, for Joonggo Nara, which was once the largest second-hand goods platform in Korea , the current enterprise value of 100 billion won is still relatively low, and it still has a lot of room for improvement.

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