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| Oasis CEO Ahn Jun-hyung speaks during a press conference held for the company's IPO plan in Seoul, on Wednesday. Courtesy of Oasis |
By Kim Jae-heun
Oasis Market will become the first e-commerce firm to be listed on the Korean stock exchange on Feb. 23 ― going ahead of all the other top players in the market that have postponed their initial public offerings (IPOs) due to the sluggish economy. Oasis will list its shares on the secondary Kosdaq.
Oasis believes this year is the right time to go public as it has many business plans ready to launch in the first half of 2023. Most importantly, there is plenty of room for the company to grow and continue its double-digit sales growth over the next few years.
"We only have 1.3 million users registered to our paid-membership program. That is not a big number compared to the 10 million users that Kurly has. However, if you think about it another way, it means Oasis still has much room to grow," Oasis CEO Ahn Jun-hyung said. "We have the smallest number of users among all e-commerce firms here but our customers show a 95-percent repurchase rate. This means, if we only collect more members, the company can grow exponentially. We are looking to increase membership by 10 times after the IPO."
Ahn also emphasized that Oasis is the only local e-commerce firm that is making a profit.
"Fresh food is a sector that leaves the least profit margin among all the categories in the online grocery business. Oasis' main business lies in online purchase and delivery of organic foods and we are still the only one that is generating profit," Ahn said.
The CEO said the company was able go to into the black as it cut unnecessary expenses at the secondary vendor level to reduce the prime cost of products, while developing its own logistics automation system to expand its fulfillment center at a cheaper cost.
"We are expanding our business from the fresh food to the processed food sector with our private brand products. Ultimately, we want to operate an overnight delivery service across the whole country," Ahn said
Oasis's cumulative sales and operating profit in the third quarter of last year marked 311.8 billion won ($247.4 million) and 7.7 billion won, respectively, up 19.86 percent and 80.67 percent, year-on-year. The company's number of paid-membership users has increased by more than 50 percent from 870,000 in 2021 to 1.3 million in 2022.
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