Instead of Direct Presence
Amazon will help domestic sellers export products online. Since GMarket and 11st currently operate a reverse direct purchase platform in South Korea, there will be growing competition for online exporting.
According to retail industry sources on September 24, Amazon Global Selling Korea will hold a press conference at COEX in Samsung-dong, Seoul, on September 28 to unveil domestic business strategy and programs that help online sellers enter the global market.
Amazon Global Selling is a website that helps online sellers register products and conduct marketing campaigns so that they can sell products through Amazon.com. Sellers can register themselves as “professional seller” with a monthly fee of US$40 (45,380 won) or “regular seller” with a fee of US$1 (1,135 won) for every purchase.
Considering the fact that the e-commerce market is rapidly growing and an increasing number of online sellers are seeking to go global, Amazon Global Selling is planning to provide support programs that are tailored in South Korea.
Until now, there have been rumors in the retail industry that Amazon will push into the domestic online shopping market. In particular, some said that Amazon was about to enter the South Korean e-commerce market as Amazon held a job fair to recruit “seller support associates” in colleges this year and hired employees. However, the company is expected to secure domestic sellers as customers and help them push into the global market as it will focus on announcing its seller support plans at the press conference.
An official from the industry said, “There are a lot of sellers with competitive products, including fashion and soho mall, in South Korea. Amazon will promote them to improve the product competitiveness of Amazon.com.” Another official said, “Online malls need to have good products to attract customers. Amazon also seems to focus on securing products.”
An official from the online retail industry said, “The domestic reverse direct purchase market shows a rapid growth but the share in the online retail business is still insignificant. Since sellers sell their products through numerous distribution channels at the same time, Amazon’s latest decision to support online exporting will not have a huge impact.”