Coupang Offers 'Rocket Delivery' for Fresh Produce from Small Merchants

Expanding from Grains to Nuts and Seafood in Q1 This Year

Products from small and medium-sized sellers selling fresh food on Coupang Marketplace will also be eligible for Rocket Delivery.

Coupang announced on the 18th that it has added some fresh food categories to Rocket Growth. The service will start with rice and grains and is expected to expand to nuts, dried/fresh seafood excluding refrigerated and frozen foods by the first quarter of this year. Accordingly, fresh food Rocket Delivery for small and medium-sized merchants nationwide using the Marketplace is expected to increase.

Kang Sin-jeong, CEO farmer of the agricultural corporation Namu Company using Coupang Rocket Growth.
[Photo by Coupang]

Coupang explained that fresh food sellers are mainly small-scale farmers, unlike general industrial products or daily necessities. Products such as rice, brown rice, grains, seafood, and dried fish are mostly produced by small local rice mills or agricultural and fishery corporations operating farms and fields. However, they have faced difficulties in developing online sales channels due to a lack of delivery personnel and marketing know-how.

Rocket Growth, launched in March last year by Coupang in collaboration with Coupang Fulfillment Service (CFS), is a one-stop service that handles storage, packaging, delivery, exchanges, returns, and customer service once products are stocked in CFS warehouses. It allows small quantity products to be stocked and enables fast processing from registration to stocking and ordering, making it friendly to small and medium-sized merchants.

Lee Geon-ho, CEO of Myeongseong Rice Mill, which joined Rocket Growth for the first time this month, said, "Since COVID-19, almost all sales have occurred online, but the burden of delivery and customer service increased, causing difficulties." He added, "Joining Rocket Growth has helped reduce the burden of delivery and customer service." Jin Tae-hyo of Jinju Tamra, who operates a vanadium rice farm in Jinju, also said, "I wanted to join Rocket Growth since its launch, and with the expansion of the fresh category, I was finally able to join." He added, "As a farmer responsible for farming, marketing, and sales alone, joining Rocket Growth is expected to be a new growth opportunity."

Coupang expects the number of small and medium-sized merchants using Rocket Growth to increase with the expansion of the fresh food category. More than 12,000 small and medium-sized merchants are using Rocket Growth, which was launched in the first half of 2023, accounting for the majority of Rocket Growth sellers. According to the '2023 Coupang Impact Report,' the number of small merchants with sales under 3 billion KRW on Coupang exceeded 210,000 in the first half of 2023, a 33% increase compared to about 157,000 in 2021. Their total transaction amount was 9.18 trillion KRW (as of 2022), more than double the 4.108 trillion KRW in 2019. Notably, 72% of small merchant transaction amounts occurred outside the Seoul area.

A Coupang official said, "With this expansion of the Rocket Growth category, more small and medium-sized merchants can utilize Coupang's differentiated logistics infrastructure built through years of investment." He added, "Coupang will continue to move forward toward the goal of mutual growth with small and medium-sized merchants through additional Rocket Growth service expansions and various win-win cooperation activities."