For years, Coupang has been treated as untouchable: South Korea’s answer to Amazon, built on speed, scale and an ability to pull customers back even after promotions faded. A recent personal data breach is now challenging that assumption—and offering competitors a rare opening.
The incident has triggered an unusual stress test for platform loyalty in a market long dominated by a single player. Early traffic and transaction data suggest that some habitual online shoppers are not only sampling alternatives, but staying—at least for now.
December figures show a sharp pickup at Kurly, the online grocer best known for early-morning fresh-food delivery. Industry data indicate order volumes rose more than 15% from a year earlier, a surge analysts attribute to new customer inflows following the Coupang breach. Kurly’s estimated monthly active users climbed to about 4.49 million, up 34% year on year and the highest level since launch, with sequential growth pointing to momentum beyond a one-off spike.
The impact has been most pronounced in paid subscriptions. Kurly’s membership program nearly doubled its cumulative subscriber base from a year earlier in December, marking the largest monthly increase in its history. About 70% of the company’s transaction value comes from members classified as loyal customers, magnifying the financial effect of subscriber growth. Investment banks estimate Kurly’s gross merchandise value rose more than 20% in December and forecast double-digit revenue growth for the fourth quarter—an unprecedented milestone for the company.
SSG.com, the e-commerce arm of Shinsegae Group, is experiencing a similar, though earlier-stage, shift. After rolling out a revamped membership offering, the platform saw a surge in new traffic in early January, with average daily new visitors more than tripling from a year earlier. First-time customers placing delivery orders increased by over 50%, and order volumes rose at a double-digit pace, suggesting that traffic gains are translating into actual purchases rather than short-lived curiosity.
Operational changes underscore the scale of the opportunity competitors now see. Kurly is reviewing adjustments to its delivery model as fulfillment-center utilization rises, considering broader delivery windows to distribute workloads alongside its overnight and one-hour services. SSG.com is streamlining overnight operations while expanding instant-delivery capacity, with plans to increase the number of logistics hubs by midyear to absorb higher volumes without sacrificing service quality.
Coupang’s dominance has historically rested on lock-in. Fast delivery, integrated logistics and habit-forming convenience made it difficult for rivals to retain customers once discounts ended. The breach has weakened that grip, if only temporarily, forcing a market-wide reassessment of how resilient platform loyalty really is. Competitors are responding with heavier marketing, improved memberships and service upgrades aimed at converting short-term switching into repeat behavior.
Whether these gains endure remains uncertain. The next test will be whether elevated user and order metrics persist once the immediate fallout fades—and whether challengers can maintain service levels as volumes grow. But the early data point to a broader lesson: even in a market long defined by a single dominant platform, a shock to trust can quickly turn the leader’s moment of vulnerability into an opportunity for others—one that shows up not just in traffic charts, but on the balance sheet.
