Wow Members Receive Free Fresh Food Delivery by 7 a.m.
Micro Fulfillment Center Established in Aewol-eup with 20 Billion KRW Investment
Coupang announced on the 12th that it has started a fresh food dawn delivery (Rocket Fresh) service in Jeju Island. Coupang is the first distribution company to establish logistics infrastructure capable of dawn delivery in Jeju Island.
Coupang became the first major retail company to start free early morning delivery of fresh food in the Jeju area on the 12th. Wow members can receive products ordered the previous day by 7 a.m. Photo by Coupang.
From now on, Wow members in Jeju Island can receive free dawn delivery by purchasing fresh food worth more than 15,000 KRW by midnight, with delivery by 7 a.m. the next day. Coupang plans to expand fresh food dawn delivery throughout the island, starting with major densely populated areas including Jeju City and Seogwipo City, and will open same-day delivery services in the future. Until now, Wow members in Jeju could only order daily necessities such as industrial products for next-day delivery.
Jeju Wow members can order about 400 popular fresh food items with free dawn delivery. This includes a variety of refrigerated and frozen convenience foods such as eggs, tofu, meat, kimchi, kkakdugi (cubed radish kimchi), salted seafood, dumplings, and instant soups. Coupang plans to increase the number of orderable items across various fresh food categories to more than 1,700.
In addition to fresh food, popular shelf-stable foods (ramen, snacks, instant rice, seasonings, etc.), household kitchen items (detergents, shampoo, toothpaste, etc.), and general products such as electronics, beauty products, and stationery totaling about 8,000 items can also be ordered for dawn delivery. The total number of service items reaches about 10,000.
Exterior view of the micro-fulfillment center that Coupang has officially started operating in Aewol-eup, Jeju Island. Provided by Coupang.
The dawn delivery service became possible through an investment of about 20 billion KRW to build a Micro Fulfillment Center (MFC). Since early last year, Coupang has been operating a logistics facility in Aewol-eup, Jeju, with a scale from basement level 1 to the 3rd floor, and recently added refrigerated and frozen storage facilities and equipment capable of storing fresh food, including general daily necessities. The MFC is a logistics facility based on artificial intelligence (AI) technology that predicts customer order demand and stores items with high order volumes, enabling immediate delivery upon order.
Coupang expects that the free dawn delivery service will dramatically improve the living conditions of Jeju residents, who have faced difficulties such as high additional courier delivery fees, long delivery times, and a lack of large discount stores near their residences.
Jeju Island is a place where the categories of deliverable products are limited, and even if delivery is possible, the additional delivery fees are high. According to a courier survey in Jeju (2022), the average additional delivery fee per order borne by Jeju residents for courier shipments originating from inland areas was 2,160 KRW, which increased by 69 KRW compared to 2021 (2,091 KRW). According to the province, the monthly courier volume from inland to Jeju is about 2 million boxes. Considering the additional delivery fee per courier (2,160 KRW), residents have borne about 4.3 billion KRW per month and about 51.8 billion KRW annually in additional delivery fees.
A Coupang official said, “We expect that Coupang’s free fresh food dawn delivery service in Jeju will dramatically improve living conditions in the region,” adding, “Jeju residents will reduce the burden of high prices and improve their quality of life, while local agricultural, livestock, and fishery farms and small and medium food manufacturers will establish a foundation for growth, creating a ‘win-win’ situation.”
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