Using "Wow Member" benefits to get refunds after use
Effectively turning it into a free rental
It has been confirmed that some customers are returning the hanbok their children wore for the holiday even before this year's Lunar New Year holiday has fully ended.
According to coverage by The Asia Business Daily on the 17th, children's hanbok make up the bulk of the listings in the "Fashion Accessories Popular Brand Sale" category of Coupang's Returns Market, an e-commerce platform. Discounts range from as little as 30% to as much as 80%. A girls' hanbok with a regular price of 144,000 won is even being sold for 34,510 won.
From today, the day of Lunar New Year, customers can get refunds on children's hanbok because, under Coupang's policy, Wow membership holders can return or exchange items free of charge within 30 days even for simple change-of-mind. Due to this policy, criticism has steadily surfaced every holiday that "it is practically a hanbok rental shop."
The same phenomenon was repeated during last year's Chuseok. In October last year, a poster who identified himself as a Coupang employee stated on his social media (SNS), "The Coupang returns center is a children's hanbok rental shop. While inspecting returns, I folded hanbok more than 100 times."
As controversy over intentional returns continued, Coupang strengthened its inspection process and began managing so-called black consumers. Under its policy, if a consumer intentionally and repeatedly abuses the returns service, the seller may refuse to sell to that consumer without facing any disadvantage.
An industry expert commented, "There are people who, not only with hanbok but also with expensive home appliances, buy them, use them for 30 days, return them, then buy and return them again, effectively turning it into a one-month short-term rental," adding, "There is a need to refine the system in a way that does not cause harm to white consumers (good consumers)."
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