A delivery rider carries a food package in Seoul, June 19, 2025. Newsis
Restaurants selling food through mobile delivery platform Coupang Eats on Friday protested the company’s free delivery promotion for consumers, claiming the costs of the promotion would ultimately be shifted onto them.
Korea's five small business associations, including the Korea Federation of Micro Enterprises, the Korea Merchant Association and the Korea Foodservice Industry Association, issued a joint statement saying the promotion will eventually make the platform’s market influence even stronger and result in higher platform usage fees for its partner restaurants.
The associations said the promotion will make Coupang Eats consumers rely on the company even more. They added that such market dominance will eventually make the company feel entitled to demand that the partner restaurants make a greater sacrifice.
Coupang Eats' promotional image for free delivery service / Courtesy of Coupang
“Small business owners are now standing on the brink of closure amid a quadruple whammy of high interest rates, high inflation, rising labor costs and shrinking consumer spending," the statement read.
"The aggressive marketing offensives by major platform companies, capitalizing on this crisis, are not a remedy to revive local commercial sectors as they say, but rather a poison that suffocates them."
“Monopolistic marketing costs of platform operators have been deviously passed on to partner merchants through methods such as raising platform usage fees, inducing advertising expenses, and restricting exposure on delivery apps. We’re concerned Coupang Eats’ latest marketing measure will spread to other delivery platform companies and lead to needless competition using free delivery.”
The associations demanded Coupang Eats stop its “deceptive free delivery marketing” and step forward to build a sustainable, coexisting delivery ecosystem.
“We will not sit idly by while major delivery platforms devastate local commercial sectors and threaten the very survival of small business owners,” the statement read.
Source: Korea Times News
