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Coupang, the largest open market in Korea, uses a sales method called'Winner' that encourages competition among sellers.
When the same product is offered at the lowest price, it is exposed to be seen, and even photos posted by other sellers or reviews from consumers can be used as their own, and complaints are pouring out that neither sellers nor consumers are helpful.
Reporter Jang Hoon-gyeong covered it.
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Consumers carefully check product descriptions and purchase reviews when shopping online or on mobile.
[Jiyeon Kang/Yangcheon-gu, Seoul: (In the open market) I can't see it with my own eyes, so I just see the ratings (I buy.)]
But the consumer who bought this coat had an absurd experience.
I bought it because I believed in reviews that the product was excellent at a price that was more than half cheaper than other sellers, but a coat of poor quality was delivered.
Similar damage continues.
[Coupang user: (to another seller's product) There is a review saying'I received a good hat'.
(I bought the cheapest product) There are some nonsense Korean words written on it.
The moment you look at it, you can see the craziness of lockstitching.]
The difference between the reviews and the actual product is because of
Coupang
's strange sales method.
Coupang selects the seller who offered the lowest price as'WINNER', that is, the winner, and only the products of WINNER are exposed to consumers immediately.
It is a strategy to attract customers as much as possible by putting price competition on sellers.
However, there is a serious problem with Coupang's Winner system.
This is that the cheapest seller takes not only the representative images uploaded by other sellers, but also all the customer inquiries and reviews that were carefully managed.
Mr. A, who sells masks in Coupang.
The product was suddenly not sold, so I checked that another seller who had lowered the price of 1,000 won became WINNER, the representative seller.
Sales plummeted.
[Coupang Seller A: When Winner is stolen, a notification pops up in Coupang.
When I look at it, my heart goes down.
I can't live a day...
.]
The seller who became a winner took all the representative images and customer reviews made by Mr. A.
He even signed a model at his own expense to create a product promotion image, and it became Warner Charge, with no rights.
[Coupang Seller A: It is just giving (representative image) for other sellers to sell in Coupang.
Even if you put another image, it will come out as this image.
It's an infringement of portrait rights, obviously.] The
seller who lost Winner may confuse consumers by changing the representative image, and sometimes the representative image and the actual product are different.
[Mr. Kim/Coupang user: I was looking for a laptop holder, but the product in the photo and the product in the detailed information were completely different.]
The terms and conditions of Coupang include the product introduction and photos provided by the seller
.
Is, of course, available to other vendors.
Even if you stop selling in Coupang, the content you provide once can still be used by Coupang.
On the other hand, if there is a problem with the sale of the product, the seller is responsible for all responsibility.
[Kim Yong-beom/Attorney: Coupang wants a lot of users to come in and make a lot of transactions.
It seems to be a side issue as to whether copyright or quality products can be purchased.]
Coupang said, "The WINNER system is beneficial to consumers by helping small sellers and guiding inexpensive products."
The Fair Trade Commission is reviewing the terms and conditions for unfairness, and sellers are also preparing class action suits.
(Video editing: Park Ki-duk, VJ: Lee Jun-young)