As a new father, Chil-sik Yang started his company Soonsu Korea with the goal of creating the safest baby wipes in the market—baby wipes he could use with his own child. While Chil-sik was confident that his small business could make products to rival or even surpass those of major manufacturers, his biggest problem was figuring out how to actually bring these products to the market.
“There are so many small businesses with the technical capabilities to create high-quality products, but the biggest issue they face is sales,” said Chil-sik. “When we started, the hardest part for us was that we didn’t have the expertise or personnel to sell the great products we were making.”
In 2015, after exploring various methods of distribution, Chil-sik decided to partner his small business with Coupang. To Chil-sik, Coupang was a natural fit because it solved his biggest hurdle of handling sales while allowing him to focus on creating the best products. “We had the capacity to mass produce our products, but we had a really hard time collecting payments. But with Coupang, the company directly purchased our products in bulk, and ensured we were paid the right amount on time.” Thanks to Coupang, Soonsu Korea nearly quadrupled its workforce and saw its sales shoot up from KRW 2.4 billion to KRW 17.9 billion since it started working with the company.
Jin-cheol Choi of food manufacturing company Sias shared a similar experience. “For manufacturers like us, things like inventory and order management create significant losses,” said Jin-cheol. “Coupang’s Rocket Delivery takes 100% responsibility over the orders it takes, which allows us to predict our production schedule, reduce costs, and produce the best products at the lowest prices.”
Before Sias partnered with Coupang, the manufacturer had spent two years forming a separate team to handle online sales, but concluded that it didn’t have the capacity to properly respond to the rapidly changing online market. Coupang was able to help Sias successfully navigate the challenges of e-commerce by handling everything from inventory and sales management to customer service, and Jin-cheol attributes Sias’s growth and development to this support. “Our company has become faster, more agile, and more efficient, and this was an additional benefit that came out of working with Coupang.”
To others looking to start or grow their own businesses, Jin-cheol had these words of advice: “Don’t overthink it. Just focus on creating good products at good prices, and once you bring them to Coupang, the sales will take care of themselves.”
