Hi there,

Update in Mar 2019: since this post is quiet old (published in 2016), I wrote an updated post here 10 key facts about South Korea e-commerce landscape 2019.

Other updated content that may be of interest to you:

• 8 key facts about South Korea digital marketing landscape 2019
• Key facts about Japan digital landscape 2019
• 8 key facts about China advertising landscape 2019

Again, this is part of my series about key facts about digital marketing & e-commerce in JP, China and South Korea. Articles before this post include:

• 8 key facts about China Digital Marketing Landscape (data from eMarketer)
• 8 key facts about mobile e-commerce in China (data from eMarketer)
• 8 key facts about Japan Digital Marketing Landscape
• 8 key facts about JP e-commerce
• 8 key facts about South Korea Digital Marketing Landscape

If you want to download the presentation version of this post, you could try this Google drive link.

1. South Korea e-commerce market is the 6th largest worldwide (behind China, the US, UK, JP, Germany)

Please note that from eMarketer, Retail e-commerce sales includes products or services ordered using the internet via any device, regardless of the method of payment or fulfilment; excludes travel and event tickets; converted at the exchange rate of US$1=KRW1,053.3. Also, eMarketer benchmarks its South Korea retail e-commerce sales figures against Statistics Korea, for which the last full year measured was 2014

Digital travel sales includes leisure and unmanaged business travel sales booked via any device; converted at the exchange rate of US$1=KRW1,053.31

2. There are 25M digital buyers in South Korea, 58.3% of the total population (South Korea penetration is higher than China, but lower than the US, UK, Germany and JP)

3. South Korea has the second highest percentage of retail m-commerce sales in the total retail e-commerce sales world wide

As you could see from the chart above, in 2016, about half of all retail e-commerce sales in KR would happen on mobile devices. This is the highest rate worldwide, behind China only.

4. In South Korea, female are more likely to buy online than male (57% vs. 50%) and close to 80% of respondents between the age of 20-40 year old have purchased online in the past year

Methodology: Data is from the December 2015 Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA) and Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (MSIP) – South Korea report titled “2015 Survey on the Internet Usage – Executive Summary.” 63,218 respondents ages 3+ from 25,000 family households in South Korea were surveyed face-to-face via home visits during August 1-October 15, 2015.

5. Travel, home electric appliances and clothing are the top 3 e-commerce categories in terms of sales in South Korea and digital buyers are increasingly purchasing them on Mobile devices

6. South Korea is, however, behind other developed markets like the US, UK or China when it comes to payment systems with many digital buyers are still using direct debit or bank transfer using ATM

Comment from eMarketer in the report “Global e-commerce platform 2015 “: “In fact, it was not until March 2015 when the government ended its requirement of Microsoft’s archaic ActiveX software to pay for goods and services online. A few large companies in South Korea, including Daum Kakao (which owns messaging app Kakao Talk), search engine Naver and electronics company Samsung, have announced their own online payment systems.”

7. Similar to other markets like China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, Social commerce is getting big in South Korea with 2/3 of internet users participating in it. Also the device of choice is smartphone

8. Gmarket, 11st.co.kr, Auction.co.kr are the top 3 e-commerce sites in South Korea in terms of unique visitors

That’s it from me. Thank you very much for your time and any comments are welcome.

If you want to download the presentation version of this post, you could try this Google drive link.

Cheers,
Chandler

P.S: in another unrelated topic, I recently published a book about team management on Amazon so feel free to check it out.