Hong-jong Lee is far from your average 66-year-old. In his late 50s, an age when most people are well into retirement planning, Hong-jong closed his fish cake distribution business in Seoul to try his hand at selling fish cakes in Busan, the home of the fish cake (in the U.S., this would be like a New Yorker moving to sell crab cakes in Baltimore or hot chicken in Nashville).
On a typical day, he wakes up at 4 in the morning to surf the Busan coasts. Then, from 7 AM to 10 PM, he makes fried tofu pouches and other snacks with his employees at Busan Daewon Fish Cakes, located in Busan’s renowned Kkangtong (Can) Market. He took the plunge into the e-commerce world with Coupang a couple years ago, and now he caters to customers across the nation. “We have so many orders coming in on Coupang that I don’t have enough fish cakes to sell at the market,” said Hong-jong with a hearty laugh.
Hong-jong is clearly living his best life, but the path to his golden sixties wasn’t always a straight trajectory upwards. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Hong-jong, like most traditional market sellers, saw his revenues plummet. “Sales completely bottomed out when COVID hit,” he recalls. “They dropped as low as 30% of sales from the previous year.”
As Hong-jong racked his brain for a solution, he noticed his Coupang app, which he used all the time. “I had a college student working part-time with me then,” said Hong-jong. “It was my first time selling online, so I didn’t even know how to register, and I asked the student to help me.”
Hong-jong had hoped for a boost, but little did he expect to boost sales 38 times over from January 2021, right after he joined Coupang, to December 2022. He also increased the number of employees from two to 11. Just how did he manage such spectacular success?
First, Hong-jong shook up his strategy to tackle the national market. Selling fish cakes in Busan was already a fiercely competitive endeavor, but it would be even harder for a small business owner like himself to distinguish his products when selling Busan fish cakes nationwide. Fried tofu pouches, on the other hand, were typically made by manufacturers, so Hong-jong had the idea to make them himself as his competitive edge.
“Cheap fried tofu pouches just don’t have the right flavor,” said Hong-jong. “We on the other hand cook cabbages, carrots, and other vegetables to stuff in the pouches along with glass noodles and seasoning. Imported fried tofu pouches also use gourd stems, while we use chives and chamnamul (a seasonal Korean herb). Though chamnamul is more expensive, it’s better because of its scent and soft texture.”
Good reviews soon piled up, but Hong-jong wasn’t sure how to be more active in promoting his product. It was around this time he received a call from Coupang’s Seller Management Team, which offers one-on-one consultations to small sellers with growth potential. This is a part of Coupang’s ongoing efforts to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which includes the company’s win-win growth agreement for the “digital transformation of traditional markets” with the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, Korea Commission for Corporate Partnership, and Korea Merchant Association.
“When I checked the performance, I saw that it was critical for Mr. Lee to attract new customers, so I suggested a free exposure promotion,” said Eun-byul Lee, the member of the team who was in charge of coaching Busan Daewon Fish Cakes. “This free service suggests products to customers who are likely to be looking for those products, so it’s effective in securing new customers and increasing the repurchase rate.”
She also offered suggestions to improve customer satisfaction, such as selling smaller servings to attract more customers, delivering products in vacuum-sealed packaging, and adding more professional photos on the product page. Through such improvements, Busan Daewon Fish Cakes’ products rose to the top of the rankings when searching for “fried tofu pouches,” and this exposure also boosted sales of their other products as their popularity increased.
Hong-jong had nothing but praise when asked about his experience with Eun-byul and the Seller Management Team. “She’s essentially our business partner now,” he said. “When I develop and produce products, she gives me professional advice on how to sell them. This is all thanks to Coupang.”
Even at 66, Hong-jong has no plans to stop any time soon, both in his professional and personal life. “At this age, I still go out at 4 in the morning to SUP (stand up paddle) surf. Today, I went out to Songjeong to ride my board. My dream is to spend the next 30 years surfing and making fried tofu pouches at the Kkangtong Market.”
