Dawn Delivery: The South Korean Innovation UK Consumers Don't Know They Need?

South Korea has the 5th largest eCommerce market, surpassed only by China, the US, UK and Japan. One of its success factors is its logistics infrastructure.

This post examines Coupang’s successful dawn delivery service and asks: could this innovation work in the UK, would it thrive in London?

Read for an overview of the global eCommerce market, the success factors behind Coupang’s dawn delivery service and indicative UK dawn delivery use cases.

Global Market Context

The top 10 global eCommerce markets are China, USA, UK, Japan, South Korea, India, Germany, Indonesia, Canada and France¹ .

A common theme across all 10 markets is the prevalence of marketplaces. There’s the usual global names - Amazon, eBay with national variants Rakuten, Myntra, Alibaba and Coupang.

In terms of the percentage of total retail sales, China (52.1%) and the USA (20.1%) are outliers with double digit % shares.

The UK's eCommerce sales of $195.7 billion accounts for 3.4 %, Japan’s at 3.3%. South Korea’s eCommerce percentage of total retail sales is 2.5%.

South Korean Market

The largest names in South Korean eCommerce include Gmarket, SSG, Himart and Coupang.

Coupang's website announces that their marketplace is the world's 4th largest eCommerce market. Sellers have access to an active customer base of over 21 million, the marketplace supports cross-border e-commerce.

Coupang's couriers are known as Rocket Men offering same day, rocket fresh (grocery) and dawn delivery.

What is Dawn Delivery?

Exactly what it sounds like.

Place an order as late as midnight to receive it by "7 AM the next day, or in the morning to receive it that very day."

Coupang delivery offerings are underpinned by the following:

• 70% of South Korea's population is within

• 7 miles of a Coupang logistics centre

• AI/ML demand prediction

• Infrastructure investment

• Technology-driven routing

Source: https://www.aboutcoupang.com/

Additionally, in their own words:

Comparing UK and South Korea success factors

As the 3rd largest eCommerce market, some of South Korea's success factors - AI/ML demand prediction, Infrastructure investment and Technology-driven routing - are already here in the UK.

An array of delivery and collection options from marketplaces, grocers and online retailers supports this - same day, next day, click and collect etc.

Internet usage is also high. The number of UK Internet users according to Statista stands at 60.1 million.

Whether the UK population is within 7 miles of a fulfilment centre requires more detailed research.

On their website, UK Pallets plot Amazon locations.

We can see concentration around UK population centres - London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Bradford and Port Talbot.

Factor in eBay, the major grocery and online retailers and it could be comparable - collectively. Whereas Coupang has invested so that its own fulfilment centres are within 7 miles of 70% of the South Korea population.

Which use cases and product categories?

In Coupang's case, with a fulfilment centre within 7 miles of 70% of the population, able Rocket Men couriers, the possibilities are endless.

I've grouped indicative UK use cases in the following categories - Business Needs, Lifestyle / Personal and Seasonal / Special Occasions.

Business needs

• IT Hardware - laptops, desktops, printers, monitors

• Fresh catering for business events

• Urgent office supplies - copier paper, toner etc

Lifestyle/Personal

• Emergency medicine/health products

• Travel essentials for early morning flights

• Baby supplies for night feeds

• School supplies needed for the morning

Seasonal/Special occasions

• Last-minute gifts - birthdays Mothers and Fathers day!

• Holiday emergency purchases

• Special occasion items — Anniversaries!

• Weather-related urgent needs - clothing, torches, batteries etc

Concluding Thoughts

The UK market is already saturated with multiple delivery and collection options.

A dawn delivery service doesn't make sense. 

Marketplaces and online retailers may not explicitly provide dawn delivery, but ordered early enough, orders can arrive between 0600 to 1000, same day delivery and collection.

The point, however, if the major marketplaces want to offer it, then with their infrastructure, technology stack, resources and capital, its added as a new feature.

Where marketplaces lead, others follow e.g. Amazon same and next day delivery.

But what do you think - is dawn delivery the next evolution in UK eCommerce, or a solution looking for a problem?

Further Reading

• The eCommerce Market in South Korea

• Coupang, The Highest Earning eCommerce Service in Korea 2022

1  The 10 Largest eCommerce Markets in the World by Country