Coupang to exit Japan to focus on Korea, Taiwan

Coupang has decided to withdraw its e-commerce business from Japan, 21 months after it began offering its online delivery service there, a company official said Sunday.

“After testing our service as a pilot version, we have decided to withdraw our business from Japan,” a Coupang Japan official said.

The Japanese daily, Nikkei, reported Saturday that Korea’s largest e-commerce firm will terminate its delivery service for fresh food and daily necessities in Meguro and Setagaya, Tokyo, on March 21.

The company has been operating a quick commerce service that delivers online customer purchases within 10 minutes in the two cities.

It has been selling nearly 5,000 grocery items on its shopping platform in partnership with local department store, Takashimaya and the dollar-store, Daiso.

However, local consumers find Coupang’s service less attractive because Japan already has a strong convenience store business culture.

Also, Japan has, by far, the highest senior population in the world and many of them are not used to shopping for groceries online. About 29.1 percent of its people are over 65 years old, according to Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications’ data, which was released in September 2022.

Instead, Coupang said it will focus its businesses on Korea and Taiwan.

The e-commerce firm introduced its Rocket Delivery service for Taiwanese customers last October. It provides local consumers the choice of buying hundreds of Korean items online through the direct-purchase service.

Taiwan has a high population density and is an ideal environment to run an e-commerce business. Taiwanese consumers are also very interested in Korean products due to the influence of Korean popular culture.

Coupang headquarters in Seoul confirmed the withdrawal of its business from Japan, but declined to comment further on the issue.

Meanwhile, Coupang achieved record-high sales of 26 trillion won ($19.6 billion) last year. In the third quarter of 2022, the company turned out a surplus for the first time in eight years with its Rocket Delivery service.