Backed by SoftBank’s investment, the e-commerce company was able to come up with a one-day service called Rocket Delivery. Korea’s workaholic culture -- Kim’s offspring often came home after 10 p.m. following cram school -- prompted Coupang to come up with a service that delivers products ordered from an app within hours, he once said.
“The constraints that have forced us to build a solution are unique to Korea, but who wouldn’t want this service anywhere in the world?” Kim said during the 2019 panel discussion. “Customizing our solutions around the constraints in the market to fulfill universal needs is really unique, and that’s really behind our growth.”
The Covid-19 pandemic that hit the world last year gave the business another boost, and net revenue almost doubled to $12 billion in 2020. While Coupang’s $475 million loss was smaller than in 2019, the company warned in its prospectus it might not be able to achieve or maintain profitability in the future.
“Coupang is definitely not a case of temporary growth,” said Lee Jiyoung, an analyst at NH Investment & Securities Co. in Seoul. “Its losses shouldn’t be too worrisome because they are spending for things such as expanding logistics centers or investing in IT. It’s for further growth.”
Despite the company’s popularity, it has faced scrutiny after reports of several deaths among delivery and logistics employees who were allegedly overworked. According to local reports, the latest case is a delivery man in his late 40s who worked for a year from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. Coupang said in a statement his death this month wasn’t due to his workload.
In an interview Thursday on Bloomberg TV, Kim said Coupang has had one “work-related death” in the past year. “But one is too many. And we have to continue to do better. We are actually leading the industry on this front,” Kim said. The company allows workers to have weekends off and offers vacation days and insurance, he said.
During a parliament hearing in February, Joseph Nortman, Coupang’s head of fulfillment services, reversed his company’s initial stance and apologized over last year’s death of a logistics worker after a government investigation found it was related to his job. Separately, the e-commerce firm said it would grant its warehouse staff and 15,000 full-time delivery workers as much as $90 million worth of restricted stock.
The recent backlash has done little to hamper appetite for the listing and derail Coupang’s expansion plans. The company has invested in multiple business areas, including food-delivery service Coupang Eats and newly launched streaming service Coupang Play.
“What takes you to the next level is to not settle because customers will never settle,” Kim said in 2019. “Challenge yourself and say ‘how can you let the customer have it all?’ If the customer has it all, they can’t live without you.”
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.