Building its brand on Coupang has enabled new growth opportunities for EVLUTION Nutrition, both by bringing best-sellers from the U.S. to the Korean market as well as formulating new and unique products sold exclusively into Korea.

EVLUTION Nutrition began selling on Coupang in 2018 and for years had experienced small but steady growth. The trajectory changed significantly in 2022, when it took off due to a closer working relationship with Coupang’s Brand Management team. Today, Coupang serves as EVLUTION’s largest sales channel in Korea and has gained a significant brand presence through an assortment of strong core products and successful incremental product launches.

“In the early years, our initial focus was getting our top U.S. products onto Coupang,” said Frank Grande, Senior Director at EVLUTION Nutrition. “Korean customers were responding very well to our initial assortment so we knew we were nowhere near the ceiling for how much we could grow.”

The EVLUTION Nutrition team focused on creating a best-in-class experience on Coupang and worked closely with Coupang on imagery, packaging, and building an online brand store that enhanced EVLUTION’s presence on the site. The strength of the brand and its recognition among customers enabled EVLUTION Nutrition to further expand its product assortment on Coupang to include a broader range of wellness products, including joint support, amino acids, hydration and men’s health products previously sold in the U.S. As sales increased, the teams recognized opportunities to fuel added growth by offering customers new products.

One of EVLUTION’s top-performing items was the blue raspberry flavored ENGN, a pre-workout supplement. Coupang approached EVLUTION to discuss creating a new flavor that would cater to Korean consumers’ taste preference. Frank and team were excited about the idea and felt the right flavor profile would be an incremental opportunity, meaning its sales would not take away from the popular blue raspberry product. Quickly moving from R&D to testing to production with its multiple manufacturing partners throughout the U.S., EVLUTION launched a new fruit punch flavor variation, exclusively for the Korean market.

“As we bring new products onto Coupang, we see right away there’s an immediate sales lift. On other sites, it can take three months or more to build a product and gain relevancy to where we have an impact with the shopper. We’ve built such a strong presence together with Coupang’s team so it’s exciting to see the instant impact as well as continue building our partnership through 2024 and beyond.”