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| Digital comic service on an online food delivery platform Baedal Minjok / Courtesy of Woowa Brothers |
By Kim Jae-heun
Local e-commerce firms such as Woowa Brothers, Kurly and Daangn Market are offering new products and services to secure new revenue streams amid the deepening economic downturn, according to company officials Monday.
Woowa Brothers, operator of the country's largest food delivery app Baedal Minjok (Baemin), recently launched a digital comic service on Baemin's platform. Customers can view webtoons for free without having to register as a member for the food delivery service.
Last year, Woowa Brothers also opened Baemin Store to sell various items including beauty products and flowers on the Baemin platform. All these efforts are part of Woowa Brothers' ultimate goal to make Baemin a general e-commerce platform like Coupang or even KakaoTalk.
Online grocery platform Market Kurly also rebranded its service by changing its name to just Kurly and started to diversify its business into the cosmetics and travel sectors. Before, it focused mainly on selling foods ― particularly organic and premium products that other online grocery stores don't have.
However, as retail giants like E-mart and Lotte Mart strengthen their online grocery services, Kurly realizes it is hard to maintain its competitiveness in the market with fresh food alone.
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| Kurly's cosmetic shopping platform / Courtesy of Kurly |
"We have reorganized our system to offer our customers an improved shopping experience beyond food to daily necessities and luxury cosmetics products," a Kurly official said.
Korea's biggest online flea market platform Daangn Market is aiming to enlarge its platform that provides all-around services in the local community. It has previously operated its secondhand product trading service only between local residents on its platform. Now, it runs a "matching platform" service where people are provided with a variety of information on restaurants near their homes. Daangn Market users can also connect with their neighbors online to have meetings for certain purposes such as sharing interests or useful information. It is also strengthening its fintech business to offer a simple payment system on its platform.
The three e-commerce firms have been focusing on their main businesses to build their expertise in a single specialty. However, as they grow in size, they need new growth engines to attract new customers.
Last year, Woowa Brothers recorded just over 2 trillion won ($1.58 billion) in sales, but marked an operating loss of 75.7 billion won. Kurly also saw a 217.7 billion won loss in the same period with not many new users registering for its service membership. Daangn Market's operating loss has been growing from 7.2 billion won in 2019 to 13.4 billion won in 2020 and 35.2 billion won in 2022.
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