SEOUL, Aug. 7 (Korea Bizwire) – A wave of restaurant closures is sweeping across South Korea as small business owners grapple with rising inflation and escalating delivery fees. Despite government pressure to reduce commissions, the country’s leading delivery app, Baemin, announced an increase in its brokerage fees starting August 9, pushing many struggling entrepreneurs to the [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 1 (Korea Bizwire) — Prosecutors raided the headquarters of TMON and WeMakePrice on Thursday as part of an investigation into the e-commerce platforms’ delayed payments to vendors sparked by a liquidity crisis engulfing the companies. The Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office sent investigators to the two firms’ headquarters, the home of Ku Young-bae, [...]
SEOUL, Jul. 26 (Korea Bizwire) — Thousands of customers have swarmed the headquarters of TMON and WeMakePrice, two local affiliates of Singapore-based e-commerce platform Qoo10 Group, to seek refunds, according to company officials on Friday, as payment delays by the two online marketplaces sparked liquidity woes among sellers. TMON and WeMakePrice have failed to pay [...]
SEOUL, Jul. 25 (Korea Bizwire) — Payment delays by TMON and WeMakePrice, South Korean affiliates of Singapore-based e-commerce platform Qoo10 Group, were feared to deepen liquidity woes of sellers on the online marketplaces, according to some sellers Thursday. The e-commerce platforms have failed to pay money earned by sellers in May, particularly after Qoo10 Group [...]
SEOUL, July 19 (Korea Bizwire) – Chinese, Japanese and Western restaurants will be allowed to employ immigrant workers as kitchen assistants, officials said Friday, a move that could help address workforce shortages in the restaurant industry. Under the updated work permit policy, restaurants servicing Chinese, Japanese, Western or other foreign cuisine will be permitted to [...]
SEOUL, Jul. 10 (Korea Bizwire) — Delivery app Baedal Minjok, or Baemin, said Wednesday it will raise its commission fee for restaurants that have registered for Baemin delivery services to 9.8 percent of food prices from next month. Baemin has received 6.8 percent commissions from the registered restaurants. But its two smaller rivals — Coupang [...]
SEOUL, Jun. 13 (Korea Bizwire) – In an unprecedented move, South Korea’s antitrust regulator, the Fair Trade Commission, has levied a record fine of 140 billion won against Coupang, the country’s largest e-commerce company, on allegations of unfairly favoring its own products over those of third-party sellers. The staggering penalty, the highest ever imposed [...]
SEOUL, Jun. 10 (Korea Bizwire) — Users of Naver Papago, the South Korean online portal operator’s artificial intelligence-powered translation service, have steadily increased, topping 20 million last month on overseas demand, industry sources said Monday. The number of Papago’s monthly active users (MAUs), both for app and web versions, reached 20.74 million in May, up [...]
SEOUL, Jun. 5 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea’s leading food delivery platform, Baemin, has announced that its delivery riders working over 40 hours per week earned an average monthly income of 3.93 million won from January to April this year. This figure represents a notable increase of 400,000 won (11.3%) compared to the same period in [...]
SEOUL, Jun. 3 (Korea Bizwire) – Baemin, the leading food delivery app in South Korea, will start charging “packaging fees” for takeout orders from July 1. While existing partners will be exempt from these fees until March 2025, the move suggests that packaging intermediation services may eventually become paid offerings across the board. According to industry [...]