"Talpang" Customers Flock Here... Quick Commerce Usage Doubles Last Month

Order Volumes at Hypermarkets and Convenience Stores Rose Year-on-Year Last Month
Spillover Gains from Coupang Data Breach Incident
Expansion of Product Categories and Store Operations Also a Factor

Following the personal information leak incident at Coupang, competition among retailers to attract the so-called 'Talpang' (Coupang-leavers) has intensified. In this environment, 'quick commerce' services, which deliver products ordered from nearby residential or business areas within one hour, are targeting niche markets. Offline stores such as hypermarkets and convenience stores operating quick commerce services are seeing a growing number of users as they expand their connected platforms and product categories.

According to industry sources on January 13, the quick commerce service offered by Emart through two platforms-Shinsegae Group's online shopping mall SSG.com and the delivery platform Baemin-saw sales in December, after the Coupang incident, rise by 45% compared to the previous month.

On the SSG.com application, the quick commerce service is available as 'BaroQuick', and on the Baemin app, it is accessible under the 'Emart' category. Products are delivered within one hour by motorcycle from Emart stores located within a 3-kilometer radius of the customer’s ordering area. As of the third quarter of last year, out of 133 Emart stores nationwide, 95 were available on Baemin and 60 on BaroQuick. The number of items handled also increased from about 6,000 in September of last year to over 10,000.

Quick Commerce. The Asia Business Daily Database

The convenience store industry, which entered the quick commerce market before hypermarkets, is also experiencing a spillover effect following the Coupang incident. At CU, a convenience store operated by BGF Retail, quick commerce sales from December 1 last year to January 10 this year increased by 104.6% year-on-year and by 64.6% compared to the previous month, respectively. CU provides quick commerce services through its own commerce app 'Pocket CU' and partnerships with 10 external platforms. The number of deliverable items has been expanded from about 3,000 to up to 8,000, enabling the service of most products except for tobacco and alcohol.

GS Retail, which operates the GS25 convenience store chain, also saw its quick commerce sales rise by 44% year-on-year from December 1 last year to January 11 this year. This figure includes related sales from GS The Fresh, a supermarket chain offering quick commerce services. Compared to the previous month, GS25's quick commerce sales increased by 20.1%, while GS The Fresh grew by 15%.

GS The Fresh Quick Commerce. Provided by GS Retail

In addition, Seven-Eleven, which entered the quick commerce market by joining Yogiyo in 2021 and Baemin in 2022, restructured its mobile app to an O4O (Online for Offline) model early last year. The introduction of features such as inventory search and same-day pickup contributed to a doubling of its monthly active users (MAU) in December compared to the same month the previous year.

An industry official stated, "Considering consumers' growing familiarity with fast delivery services such as dawn delivery or next-day delivery, offline channels are expanding quick commerce as a niche strategy, allowing customers to quickly receive fresh food and daily necessities in the needed quantities from nearby locations." The official added, "In addition to expanding service areas and product categories, increased attention following the Coupang incident appears to have led to a rise in order volume."

Meanwhile, according to e-commerce app trend analysis by market research firm Embrain Deep Data, Coupang's daily active users (DAU) rose from 15,905,383 on November 29 last year, when the data breach was made public, to 17,016,070 on December 1, before dropping to 14,293,534 on December 31.

Embrain explained, "The temporary increase in Coupang's DAU immediately after the incident can be attributed to 'confirmation-type logins' as users checked for information leaks, changed passwords, or withdrew memberships." The firm added, "It is noteworthy that user numbers declined about a month after the incident." Embrain further commented, "Coupang's typical avoidance of responsibility-such as minimizing the scale of the damage, issuing evasive apologies, and management's absence from hearings-has deepened consumer distrust, and this response appears to be leading to actual platform departures." The company projected, "This Coupang incident is likely to become a turning point, shifting the e-commerce market from a 'speed competition' to a 'competition of ethics and trust.'"