Korean delivery platforms vie to indulge couriers amid ever surging market

South Korea’s e-commerce and delivery platforms are competing fiercely and inventively to keep or recruit skilled couriers amid online order boom.

The country’s largest e-commerce platform Coupang has been providing optional program for delivery workers called Coupang Friends if they wish to convert to office work.

Coupang employs delivery workers directly and guarantees 5-day workweek and 15 days of annual leave. It has introduced in-house healthcare program Coupang Care since April to allow its couriers to receive a medical checkup and take sick leaves for up to four weeks according to the results of the checkup.

Woowa Brothers, the operator of the country’s No.1 food delivery app Baedal Minjok, has decided to give 200,000 won ($168) worth health supplement products to more than 10,000 delivery riders who work more than 20 days a month and deliver 15 times or more per day.

“It is a compensation for their contribution for the launch of Baemin 1, the one-order-at-a-time quick delivery service,” said an official from the company. It also held a giveaway event in July for 25 million won worth gold and a recreational vehicle.

Platform companies are bolstering their delivery service as the online shopping industry has been growing exponentially.

According to data released by Statistics Korea on Tuesday, the value of online shopping transactions in August amounted to 15.77 trillion won ($13.2 billion) in August, up 16.8 percent from last year. It marks the highest August figure since the data became available in 2001.

Online food delivery transactions jumped 44.3 percent on year to 2.41 trillion won, making a huge contribution to the overall growth.

Mobile shopping grew 22.8 percent to 11.4 trillion won to make up the largest-ever 72.3 percent of the total volume of online shopping.

For food delivery orders, a bulk of 97.6 percent of transactions were made via mobile.

[ⓒ Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]