Coupang Opened a Hanbok Store that Provides Korean Traditional Costume

1 min readUpdated Jun 4, 2025Feb 13, 20185:00 AM

E-commerce platform Coupang has opened an online store specialising in hanbok, Korean traditional clothing.

Even babies and pets are catered for with the hanbok range, which also includes hanbok accessories such as hairbands, daenggi (ribbons for braided hair) and ggotshin (women’s shoes with flower patterns).

As well as its hanbok store, Coupang has specialty stores focusing on its private-label brand Tamsaa, organic/eco-friendly items, men’s grooming, maternity items and travel accessories.

Coupang Opened a Hanbok Store that Provides Korean Traditional Costume

As well as Seoul, Coupang has offices in Beijing, Los Angeles, Seattle, Shanghai and Silicon Valley.

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What this means

Coupang's launch of a dedicated hanbok store is a shrewd play, using Korean cultural identity to carve out a unique niche in the competitive e-commerce landscape. This hyper-specific targeting, including babies and pets, extends their successful private-label strategy seen with Tamsaa and other specialty stores. Unlike Tiffany & Co.'s physical store expansion in Singapore, Coupang's digital-first approach allows for rapid, low-cost market testing of cultural products. This initiative will likely pressure local e-tailers to specialise further, but risks include limited market size for such a niche product. The key indicator of success will be whether Coupang replicates this model for other cultural products, perhaps through its Beijing or Shanghai offices, by the end of the next fiscal year.

Minjun Park

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