Last month, Coupang dispatched coffee trucks to two neighborhoods in Seoul, stationed outside the offices of Adapt and Sosan Pacific, two small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the beauty industry. Employees and their acquaintances gathered around as the baristas began distributing free coffee and other beverages.

“I expected to receive products from Coupang only through Rocket Delivery,” said Tae-hwan Yoo, an Adapt employee, “So it’s amazing to find coffee trucks here like this in the morning!” Similarly, Hye-jin Ahn from Sosan Pacific said, “Thanks to our customers, we can enjoy coffee from these trucks, and we feel very proud and rewarded.”

These trucks were a part of the Coupang Beauty Awards, an event hosted by Coupang to recognize rising stars in the beauty industry. The company has been very active in supporting SMEs in this industry, with over a thousand SME beauty brands more than doubling their annual sales on Coupang in the past year. This is a sizeable achievement considering that major Korean and international conglomerates dominate most of the sales in the beauty industry.

CEO Jung-ha Park of Adapt, the SME that runs the cosmetics brand Obge, accredits Coupang for their ability to compete even against industry giants. “There’s a limit to sales if the distribution channel doesn’t support you,” he said. “But if you go to a channel that helps expose your products to customers, such as Coupang, this exposure helps convert to a purchase.”

Thanks to this exposure and word-of-mouth among customers, sales of Obge increased tenfold in two years, which allowed Jung-ha to switch to a large manufacturer to help reduce unit costs. “At first, our order volume wasn’t so large, around 3,000 or so,” said Jung-ha. “However, as sales increased and we began placing orders in the tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands, we began working with a large manufacturer. We even have a dedicated team there now as well.”

CEO Ik-je Ahn of Sosan Pacific, which owns the makeup brush brand Piccasso, is also grateful for the boost that Coupang gave his company. “Originally, when makeup artists wanted brushes, we went directly to the store and sold the products. However, we had limited manpower, and we couldn’t go to distant regions,” he said. “So, I joined Coupang, thinking that it would be great if there was a company that could take care of this for me. Now, our customers can quickly receive our products when they want them.”

Since joining Coupang, Sosan Pacific has also benefited from the customer reviews to further improve their products, which has helped the company develop the products that customers want and even improve the user experience. “When we put dozens of different brushes on Coupang, it turned out that customers often didn’t know what their particular uses were. By reflecting the feedback and configuring the sets to suit the customers’ needs, product satisfaction increased greatly.” Thanks to such efforts, annual Piccasso brush sales increased fivefold over the last two years.

“After seeing many small businesses growing alongside Coupang Beauty, these Beauty Awards were a very meaningful event for me personally as well,” said Seung-min Hong, the Director of Coupang Retail’s Beauty Team. “We will continue working hard to give greater growth opportunities to sellers and wider selections to customers.”