How to Increase Online Small Business Sales by 20 Times Lies in Big Data

Interview with Jeong Yong-eun, CEO of Storelink
Collecting and analyzing over 2 million data points daily from more than 20 domestic open markets
Analyzing consumer purchase patterns and identifying various routes linked to sales

Jeong Yong-eun, CEO of Storelink

"Many companies have seen their sales increase by 10 to 20 times through the StoreLink solution," said CEO Jeong Yong-eun, referring to one of the achievements made over about two and a half years since the startup's inception. StoreLink provides big data analysis and marketing solutions specialized for open markets in e-commerce. Considering that competition among small and medium-sized merchants entering e-commerce intensified during the two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, leading a 20-fold increase in sales is a remarkable achievement. This is also an area that attracts the attention of many people running online-based businesses. How was this possible? We spoke with CEO Jeong for more details.

On the 3rd, CEO Jeong said, "Previously, marketing for companies entering e-commerce was mainly focused on portal or SNS advertisements, but we paid attention to the fact that consumers make purchases through various methods." StoreLink possesses technology that analyzes consumer purchasing patterns through big data to identify various routes that lead to sales. It collects and analyzes over 2 million data points daily from more than 20 major domestic open markets such as Naver Shopping, Coupang, and 11st, building marketing prediction models. To date, more than 70 billion data points have been analyzed through StoreLink's platform.

StoreLink automatically analyzes consumer purchasing patterns from this big data and proposes marketing solutions to supplement any shortcomings. CEO Jeong explained, "Looking at purchasing patterns, there are three main types: purchases through advertisements, search purchases, and purchases through special promotions. Analysis shows that some places have no inflow through special promotions, while others have no purchases through search. We suggest how to market based on this data." For example, if inflow through special promotions is low, they advise on how to operate such promotions; if the search aspect is lacking, they analyze and inform how to improve search exposure. CEO Jeong cited this ability to connect data analysis directly to marketing services as a differentiated competitive advantage. When applied together with marketing solutions, the predicted sales growth rate has an accuracy of up to 80%.

The establishment of StoreLink’s business model, which connects big data analysis to marketing solutions, fully reflects CEO Jeong’s accumulated experience as an entrepreneur. Having self-taught programming while in high school and starting his first business at 19, CEO Jeong has extensive experience in investments and mergers & acquisitions (M&A). He has launched as many as 10 services so far. To promote and succeed with these services, he also self-studied marketing. Over more than a decade, he accumulated know-how on efficient marketing and conceived the idea of platformizing it. CEO Jeong said, "Previously, marketing strategies in open markets were mostly done haphazardly without considering the characteristics of products or brands. After analyzing data, we found patterns beyond the heavily relied-upon external advertising media, and when we tested services that could verify these, satisfaction was high and sales occurred, so I thought we could properly develop this."

CEO Jeong’s insight proved accurate. Since its founding in April 2020, about 110,000 online sellers have used StoreLink’s services in a short period. Cumulative investment has also exceeded 11 billion KRW. This has become a driving force to explore global market entry after solidifying the domestic market. The solution is designed to be applicable across various open markets for comprehensive analysis, and analysis for Rakuten and Amazon is already underway. CEO Jeong emphasized, "We expect to enter the global market early next year, starting with the Japanese market. We plan to expand beyond e-commerce marketing solutions to an all-in-one platform."