Amazon to launch in South Korea marketplace

The cloud computing company, which has already set up its technology infrastructure platform, Amazon Web Services, in Korea in January 2016, now moves towards opening its marketplace with third party sellers to Korean consumers.

New roles​

As part of its preparation, Korea Times announced that Amazon has advertised 48 new positions at its Seoul office with various job titles including ‘Account Executive’, ‘Seller Support Associate’ and ‘Amazon Global Selling’.

The ‘Account Executive’ role states that this job title will promote responsibility “for identifying, targeting, and marketing Amazon’s global marketplaces to S. Korean Sellers of all sizes to grow the Seller’s business around the world”.​

The ‘Seller Support Associate’ will be “responsible for providing timely and accurate operational support to 3rd party Sellers on the Amazon platform”.​

Making its mark​

Amazon looks to grow its customer base and promote products from a host of industries including cosmetics and personal care. By gearing up its proven business model and preparing infrastructure, local businesses will need to increase competitiveness to maintain market share. 

Amazon gets set to prepare to go into fierce competition with home-grown brands and leading multinational e-commerce companies including eBay Korea, Lotte and Shinsegae to enter into the nation’s powerful online retail market.

Local competition​

Auction and Gmarket merged in 2011 to create eBay Korea. The company is worth 14 tn won (€10.7 bn) and is the third largest retailer in the country after Shinsegae reaching 18 trillion won (€13.7 bn) and Lotte worth 26 tn won (€19.3 bn).

South Korea is the second largest e-commerce market in the world, with only the UK’s reach topping that of the APAC nation. With this said, as South Korea’s market was tipped at $19.12 bn (€16.8bn) in 2016, and with an anticipated growth of over $32 bn (€28.1 bn) by 2021, its 72% active shopping reach is expected to outperform the UK.