Kang Hee-seok "SSG Promotion Tasks: Growth, Customer, Platform, Revenue"

SSG.com Employees Participate in 'Open Talk' Event
Fostering Key Categories and Launching Membership 2.0 Within the Year

Kang Hee-seok, CEO of SSG.com, is speaking at the 'Open Talk' event held on the 26th at the headquarters in Yeoksam-dong, Seoul (Photo by SSG.com).

"This year will be the first year to establish a sustainable growth system by securing the fundamental competitiveness of our business model and improving the profit structure."

Kang Hee-seok, CEO of SSG.com, said at the 'Open Talk' event held on the 26th at the headquarters in Yeoksam-dong, Seoul, "Let's evolve into a 'premium platform based on customer trust' that leads customers' first choice in core categories such as grocery and lifestyle." He cited growth, customers, platform, and profit as mid- to long-term tasks to achieve this.

From a growth perspective, the goal is to secure a competitive edge in the fiercely competitive online grocery shopping market by leveraging the SSG Delivery service. Through continuous service advancement, they plan to increase basket penetration for their main customers, households of 3 to 4 people, while actively reflecting the demands of 1 to 2-person households with high growth potential to differentiate the service. In the lifestyle (non-grocery) sector, they plan to strategically nurture the fashion and beauty categories, which are growing based on premium and luxury brands, to expand market dominance.

On the customer side, they plan to strengthen the customer loyalty program by launching 'Integrated Membership 2.0' within the year, which connects benefits from major offline affiliates such as E-Mart, Shinsegae Department Store, and Starbucks. They intend to execute more sophisticated targeted marketing to increase the proportion of new customers converting into loyal customers.

SSG.com will establish a platform strategy that can lead the e-commerce market from an integrated perspective by specializing the roles of individual platforms such as Gmarket, Auction, and W Concept. SSG.com will solidify its image as a 'trust-based premium shopping platform' with strengths in grocery and lifestyle categories, Gmarket and Auction will focus on securing price and assortment competitiveness as 'mega platforms' with the industry's largest seller infrastructure, and W Concept will take on the role of a 'category killer' leading the online fashion market.

From a profit perspective, they plan to strengthen the balanced growth strategy promoted since the second half of last year and create a business model that can turn profitable in the future.

CEO Kang said, "Despite fierce market competition, SSG.com has continued solid growth in key indicators such as Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) and Monthly Active Users (MAU) since its corporate launch in 2019. Last year was a year to lay the foundation of the 'One Digital Universe' by successfully launching the integrated membership service with Gmarket and transferring SSG.com's online grocery shopping capabilities to Gmarket," adding, "We will focus on securing differentiated competitiveness unique to SSG.com and improving the profit structure to respond to changes in the management environment."