Coupang is now offering same-day grocery delivery

A model holds up groceries delivered through Coupang's same-day delivery service. [COUPANG]

Coupang is formally starting same-day delivery of groceries, the e-commerce operator announced Wednesday.

Coupang ran a trial before officially rolling out the service Wednesday.

With the new service, customers will receive their groceries by 6 p.m. if they place their orders by 10 a.m.

They have to pay a 2,900 won ($2.60) monthly membership fee and have to spend at least 15,000 won per order.

The service isn’t available on Jeju.

Before the service was introduced, users had to place their orders by midnight to get next-morning delivery.

Coupang said its distribution infrastructure that helps manage inventory made it possible to introduce the latest service.

“The e-commerce sector has introduced some prominent and disruptive innovation cases using artificial intelligence technology,” said Professor Lee Hee-seok from KAIST College of Business. “The reason why Korea did not witness panic buying or stockpiling of fresh food and necessities as seen in the United States, Britain and Japan was thanks to the Korean e-commerce industry that was more advanced than elsewhere.”

“Striking work-life balance and spending quality family time around a meal are valued much more than in the past for double-income families and single-person households that lead busy lives,” said Coupang’s Vice President of Retail Helen Yoon. “We will offer this service to help our customers across the country to conveniently purchase from over 8,500 different fresh foods options and receive them before breakfast or dinner time.”

BY JIN MIN-JI [jin.minji@joongang.co.kr]