Yoojin Jang, founder and CEO of pet apparel company Boldog, never imagined herself running her own business.
Her last job was for an international cosmetics company, where she worked for ten years, before her husband got a job offer in China. Their family came with and Yoojin quit her job to focus on raising her children. By the time she returned, she was 38, and began looking into resuming her career. She was eager to get back to work, but she quickly ran into a wall due to her career gap.
“I had put my career on hold to support my husband and raise our kids,” said Yoojin. “But when I finally had time for myself, I couldn’t even get past the document screening.”
This was in 2018, around the time of the World Cup. While enjoying the match with her family, she saw their dog Cookie and felt the spark of an idea. “I was thinking it would be fun to dress Cookie in a football uniform,” she said, when inspiration struck. “Wait—what if I tried selling that online?”
At first, Yoojin started her business without an office or shop, running everything online from her home. Despite Boldog’s humble beginnings, Yoojin put her heart and soul into the business, diving deep into the needs of her potential customers as a pet owner herself. For example, because older dogs often needed to go through surgeries, Yoojin thought to design cute “patient” clothes that would prevent dogs from licking at their stitches. She also designed raincoats, fleeces, and other must-have items.
When starting out, Yoojin launched on various marketplaces, but she found that Coupang had the most seller-friendly options to help her jumpstart her business. For example, with pet clothes, even just one style of clothing requires many variations depending on the pet breed and size. Other sites required Yoojin to make separate pages and prices for each option of each product, but Coupang allowed her to create one page for each product and set the prices for each variation at once. “Coupang was very convenient from these kinds of aspects, so I used it even more,” said Yoojin.
Yoojin also loved the differentiated “customer service” she received as a seller on Coupang. “Coupang Marketplace works to help sellers take their businesses to the next level,” she said. “Whenever I had questions or difficulties, I would contact the customer center for sellers, and I never had an issue connecting to a representative.” This was another major benefit to Coupang. “At other places, even if you specifically ask for a consultation, you only get the chatbot, and some places won’t ever connect you to a representative. So, from that aspect, I’m very satisfied with Coupang as well,” said Yoojin.
At first, Yoojin was excited just to be able to make one sale, starting with an investment of less than 800 dollars. Through her dedication and with Coupang’s support, she made over 100,000 dollars last year. Sales continue to grow, with sales from her first quarter this year reaching over 30,000 dollars. Yoojin even has her own office and shop.
“My kids tell me they’re proud of me because of my work, and my self-esteem is going up by leaps and bounds,” said Yoojin. “I was a housewife who hadn’t worked for five years, and so if even I can reach this level of success, that says something about Coupang, right?”
Yoojin and Cookie have been so happy in this next chapter of their lives, and they will continue making (and modeling) high-quality apparel for pet owner customers. And as always, we will continue supporting Boldog and the hundreds of thousands of other merchants earning their living on Coupang.
