A Deeper Dive Into The Fast Delivery Service In Korea

You may be aware of the various delivery foods that are available in Korea including our delivery service.

But did you know that the delivery service of e-commerce malls in Korea is also very developed?

In recent years, many online shopping malls have started providing same-day delivery and early morning delivery services.

Today, I am going to go into detail about the most popular delivery services in Korea and their pros and cons.

Major Online Shopping Platforms

Coupang, Market Kurly, SSG are the major shopping platforms in Korea.

Coupang

Coupang is the largest online shopping website in Korea.

Since it sells literally almost all products you need, it ranks first place in the number of users on domestic shopping platforms.

It is said that about 20 million people spent 2.4 trillion won (approx. 2.1 billion USD) at Coupang in one month as of January this year!

Rocket Delivery

Rocket Fresh Same Day Delivery

Rocket Fresh Early Morning Delivery

Rocket Fresh mainly delivers fresh food, while the standard Rocket delivery delivers all products, including food. That's why a lot of Koreans prefer Coupang!

Also, most other online shopping websites only offer same-day delivery and early morning delivery in Seoul and the metropolitan area, but Coupang offers same-day delivery all over the country except for only a small number of areas.

This is possible since Coupang has its own 7 distribution centers across the country!

Source: Coupang

Coupang also has a membership of 2,900 won per month called Rocket Wow. Rocket Fresh is a delivery service that can only be used if they are subscribers of Rocket Wow. 

However, if you have the Rocket Wow membership, you can use Rocket shipping for FREE without a minimum order, so if you frequently order things from Coupang, Rocket Wow membership sounds like a great deal right?

Market Kurly

Market Kurly is a Korean online shopping website that specializes in fresh food. Because they focus on the quality of the foods, it's well-known for having high-quality ingredients.

It is said that women in their 20s to 40s who are health-conscious use this the most. I even know a few people in my network that like to use this platform when ordering their food. 

Standard Delivery

Early Morning Delivery

The early morning delivery service is similar to Coupang's Rocket Fresh early morning delivery. In fact, Market Kurly's early morning delivery was the first to attempt this quick delivery method in Korea.

However, since early morning delivery service is only possible in the Seoul, Gyeonggi, and Incheon areas, the other provinces can only use their standard delivery service.

But even the standard shipping is quite fast so the satisfaction rate is still high.

E-Mart (SSG.com)

SSG is an online mall of E-Mart, a major supermarket in Korea. 

Products that are sold in stores can all be purchased here. You can get all your groceries done in the comfort of your own home!

SSG Delivery

SSG Good Morning Delivery

SSG Early Morning Delivery

Similar to Market Kurly, SSG also provides early morning delivery only in the metropolitan area. Regions, where early morning delivery is not available, can use the standard SSG delivery service.

Source: E-Mart

Shinsegae's greatest advantage is that you can reserve the date and time of your delivery. You can select a date and time within 5 days of your order between 06:00-22:00. You can receive the freshest food at the time and date of your choice!

Pros

What are the benefits of fast delivery services? Let's find out!

1. Quick and Convenient

The biggest advantage of the delivery systems in Korea is that it's quick and convenient! 

In most cases, you can get everything from groceries to huge appliances and furniture in one day.

Especially for food, when you go to the supermarket after work there are only leftovers that are sometimes poor in quality. Korea's fresh food delivery system allows you to receive the freshest foods before you head to work. 

I think this is the greatest advantage for most people in cities that are always on the go!

2. Affordable

The shipping fees usually range from 2,500 won to 3,000 won. There's only an additional fee that may be applied when you order heavy items like furniture or huge appliances!

However, as you can see from the graph above, Coupang has free shipping as long as the minimum order amount is exceeded. Market Kurly and E-Mart have a standard shipping fee of 3,000 won but if you order more than 40,000 won you can receive free shipping as well!

Even early morning delivery or same-day delivery is available at no additional shipping costs. 

3. Contact-free Delivery

One of the most unique things about delivery in Korea is that you don't need to be there in person to receive your package. When you place your order, you can put in the location of where you'd like to receive the package, and then you can go pick it up whenever you want.

Especially since the coronavirus, this has become the most preferred way of delivery just like the photo above where the delivery man drops off the package right in front of the door to eliminate any physical contact.

There are many CCTV cameras in Korea and there is a high civic awareness that you shouldn't take other people's things so theft of parcel delivery is not common for this method to be widely used. 

When the delivery is made, you will receive a notification via text or within the app.

After confirming that the delivery has been completed, there is no need to meet the delivery man, just open the door slightly and bring your package in!

4. Eco-friendly

Source: Coupang

Recently, more people are conscious about the environment and trying to lead a sustainable lifestyle. 

For this reason, large companies have been pursuing eco-friendly delivery. 

Sometimes when you order something, there's a lot of unnecessary trash. Whenever I receive an order, I always felt guilty seeing not only the box it gets delivered in but also all the wrappers that comes in the box to protect the package.

The companies I introduced above provide eco-friendly delivery so you can frequently shop there without feeling guilty!

Source: E-Mart

Coupang's Rocket delivery and E-Mart's early morning delivery use a cooling bag named "Fresh Bag" and "I'll Be Bag" to deliver their food.

As the name suggests "Fresh Bag" and "I'll Be (Back) Bag" allows you to receive fresh food. 

Also, after receiving the product you can store the bag away and the next time you make an order, you can leave it outside your door for the delivery man to pick it up so it's super convenient! 

Source: Market Kurly

Market Kurly launched the "All Paper Challenge" in 2019 to change their shipping materials to 100% recyclable materials.

They use paper boxes and paper tapes, paper cushioning material instead of plastic cushioning material, and water packs wrapped in paper instead of ice packs. 

They experimented a lot to make sure that their eco-friendly packaging can keep the foods fresh so you can be assured. 

With this challenge, they have so far managed to save a total of 4831 tons of plastic in one year! Isn't that amazing? 

Cons

What bad could come from speedy delivery services? From delivery errors to working conditions, the list doesn't stay short.

1. Delivery Error and Delays

The biggest issue with same-day delivery and early morning delivery is that there are sometimes errors and delays.

There are cases of items being delivered to the wrong address, the wrong package arriving, or deliveries not arriving on time.

Source: Coupang Newsroom

Many companies, including the three I mentioned above, provide same-day and early morning delivery services. In fact, it has only been around 5 years since this delivery method was first launched.

In addition, as the number of orders exploded from last year's coronavirus, overloaded distribution centers have made this a serious problem. 

Source: Coupang Newsroom

Same-day delivery and early morning delivery markets have grown at a rapid speed in such a short period of time, so it's no surprise that these problems arise.

In order to provide a better service, companies need to establish specific compensation plans for customers that may have issues with their order and employ more people to prevent this issue from happening.

2. Company's Arrogant Attitude

Gahp-jil (갑질) refers to the bossy and arrogant attitude of a person or group that has the upper hand over the other. 

This kind of incident is quite common in Korean society. It is said that companies that provide same-day or early morning delivery often treat their workers horribly. 

In particular, news broke out that Market Kurly has created a blacklist for some of their workers.

Market Kurly released a statement that the blacklist was created to filter out workers who didn't work diligently. But according to the workers that were blacklisted, it was a form of retaliation in order to silence them.

For example, one worker reported a manager of Market Kurly for poor treatment and sexual misconduct but ended up being blacklisted.

Because of these incidences, it is said that workers aren't able to publicly come forward about recent hygiene issues such as rats being discovered around their work-site allegedly. 

Source: Byline Network

Above all, it's shocking to know that rats were discovered around Market Kurly's distribution center! However, Market Kurly is denying its allegations. 

I don't think it's right to blacklist their workers without listening to their issues and opinions.

I think it's a tough issue since we can't fully know if the allegations are true or not!

3. Labor Conditions of Delivery Workers

There is a huge problem with the delivery worker's labor conditions.

Delivery workers in Korea have always suffered from an excessive amount of work. However, with the overwhelming increase in shipments ever since the coronavirus, it was revealed that in 2020, 16 workers died after working too hard for too long without rest.

In fact, there are 16 people that are known to the media, but it is estimated that there are much more deaths that have occurred. 

There are also many cases of workers who have sadly taken their own lives.

For these reasons, the working conditions are a major problem. 

Contrary to what we might think, delivery workers don't just make deliveries but they also sort the packages in the delivery zone and send them to sub-terminals.

They usually work in the early mornings and sort the shipments until about 2-3 PM, then they make their deliveries from night to dawn. 

It is also reported that they don't even get paid for the hours when they're sorting the packages.

Kim, a delivery worker who unfortunately passed last year, is said to have delivered around 200 to 300 shipments a day the week before and made deliveries until dawn.

Source: Hani.co.kr

In January 2021, an agreement was reached to prevent delivery men from being overworked.

The delivery companies will now be in charge of sorting the shipment, and the delivery workers will work a maximum of 12 hours a day, 60 hours a week.

However, since the companies that do early morning deliveries didn't participate in this agreement, early morning deliveries will continue.

Some of my peers who are highly conscious of the harmful working conditions of these delivery workers try to stay away from early morning delivery.

Now that I know that delivery workers may suffer for my convenience, it feels quite cruel to take advantage of these services.

Today we learned about the fast delivery service that's available in Korea. What are your thoughts? Is it different or similar to your country?

With the rapid development of delivery services, our lives are becoming much more convenient but at the same time, it seems that so many suffer from poor working conditions.

We hope that the working conditions will improve soon so that the workers can be taken care of while we use these services!

I'll be back with more informative content next time, thank you for reading!