Coupang debuts Rocket Growth Fashion to boost fashion biz

Coupang Inc., a leading e-commerce company in South Korea, reportedly launched its new Rocket Growth Fashion unit. Sources said this week that the company debuted this in-house division as its rival, Kurly, which is formerly known as Market Kurly, recently established its Beauty Kurly unit.

With its Rocket Growth Fashion, Coupang will focus on bolstering its retail fashion business. One of the things that it will do to reach its goals is to add new brands and recruit more vendors that will sell fashion items on its platform.

It was noted that Coupang was able to get 35 new brands to sell their products on its e-commerce platform, and this was in the first half of 2022 alone. This means that the company has been enjoying its unbeaten position in the food and household essentials market.

However, its retail fashion category has been weak compared to the others thus, it debuted its Rocket Growth Fashion with the aim of making this unit stronger. As per The Korea Economic Daily, based on consumer data from Opensurvery, only 16.3% of customers are buying fashion products on Coupang’s platform

In comparison with its other rival, Naver Shopping, 33.3% of its shoppers are purchasing fashion items. There is apparently a big percentage difference, so Coupang is working on boosting the numbers through the launch of its Rocket Growth Fashion unit.

The company is also looking to catch up and compete with bigger online fashion e-commerce sites in South Korea. For this, Musinsa will be its biggest competitor in this line of fashion retail business.

Meanwhile, Coupang has already launched a campaign in its effort to partner with local fashion brands. Currently, some of the fashion retailers that are already selling on Coupang’s site include Chuu and Imvely.

“We have been approached multiple times by Coupang since last year,” an employee of a fashion brand said in relation to Coupang’s move to add more brands to its e-commerce platform. “It appears that it is making an effort to host brands in the low and mid-price range on its platform.”