April 20, 2024

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[THE INVESTOR] Amazon Global Selling Korea CEO Park Joon-mo announced on Sept. 28 that the company will extend its support for local sellers.

“We will support Korean sellers to the maximize for overseas sales during Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Christmas shopping seasons,” Park said during a press conference in Seoul.

He also highlighted the company’s “Fulfillment by Amazon” service that is offered to sellers with some extra fees. When using the service, sellers only have to send their inventories to 11 global logistics centers Amazon has worldwide, including Asia, Europe and America. Once the products are sent to the centers, Amazon takes care of the rest of the process, such as packaging and delivery.


 

Amazon Global Selling Korea CEO Park Joon-mo

“Korean customers don’t like waiting, and these products are delivered to global customers within two days,” Park said.

Furthermore, Amazon also plans to establish Seller Central -- a platform for third-party sellers -- in the Korean language within the fourth quarter of this year. The company has also formed a separate support team that can speak Korean to support local sellers because the company believes the language barrier has made vendors reticent to use its services.

Amazon is not alone in wanting to expand. Competitors like eBay Korea and SK Planet, which are e-commerce leaders here, are also planning to either start or expand their global sales by establishing Gmarket Global Shop and Global 11st, respectively.

“We realize that there are lots of platforms that are bringing sellers globally,” said Cindy Tai, vice-president of Amazon Global Selling’s Asia-Pacific region. “But we focus on what we can bring to our sellers, rather than (thinking about our) competition.”

Amazon, which entered Korea in 2015, has more than 300 million customers in 185 countries.

By Song Seung-hyun (ssh@heraldcorp.com)