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Gmarket to invest $490M in push with Alibaba to sell Korean goods abroad

Published: 21 Oct. 2025, 17:44 Updated: 21 Oct. 2025, 19:18

CHO YONG-JUN
[email protected]

Gmarket CEO James Chang speaks during a press conference on Oct. 21. [YONHAP]

Gmarket plans to invest 700 billion won ($490 million) next year as it focuses on selling Korean goods to overseas consumers in cooperation with Alibaba's AliExpress.

The expanded cross-border service will allow Korean products from Gmarket to be purchased directly through AliExpress, the Korean e-commerce platform announced on Tuesday, thanks to the deep integration between the Korean e-commerce platform and Alibaba.

Gmarket set an ambitious goal of launching its service to sell Korean goods around the world by 2027, with the early foreign market debuts centered on Southeast Asia. The next step for Gmarket is to expand to South Asia with the help of Daraz — an Alibaba-owned e-commerce platform based in Pakistan — and in Spain through Miravia, another marketplace owned by Alibaba Group.

Gmarket CEO James Chang said during Tuesday's press conference in southern Seoul that the platform aims to reach over 100 countries in the next five years, generating over a trillion won in revenue and 100 million more customers. Chang's e-commerce expertise derives from co-founding Lazada Philippines and working at Lazada Singapore and Lazada Indonesia before taking the helm of Gmarket.

Gmarket, utilizing the joint venture with Alibaba International, already partnered with Lazada on Sept. 29, allowing Korean Gmarket sellers to easily list their items on Lazada, Alibaba’s localized e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia.

Out of the planned 700 billion won investment, 500 billion won will be utilized to subsidize sellers during discount seasons, 100 billion won will go toward customer-targeted promotions and another 100 billion won is allocated for improvements to its AI.

In a separate agreement reached in December 2024, Shinsegae, the parent group of Gmarket, agreed to form a joint venture with China's online giant Alibaba International.

Throughout the press conference, Gmarket emphasized that the joint venture was not done with AliExpress Korea but its parent company, Alibaba International. This was in line with Korea’s Fair Trade Commission and its decision to approve the joint venture only on the premise of Gmarket and AliExpress Korea operating separately.

The deal sparked concerns over the sharing of private data, which Gmarket also addressed onstage, saying that its user data will be kept and managed by the company, adding that any user data required for AI training will be done on Korean servers without user identification.

The Gmarket CEO also openly admitted that its platform and the infrastructure of Gmarket fall behind that of the global standard, which is why it is pursuing upgrades through Alibaba technology.

“It’s not just a remodeling; it would be an across-the-board platform reconstruction that will incorporate Alibaba’s state-of-the-art technology,” he said.

This, obviously, includes an AI-powered search service where searching for one product will result in different results depending on the user, according to the company.

“I’ve been abroad for many years, and I saw Korea and its image change positively over the years,” Chung said. “There are needs, but there aren’t enough Korean products abroad.

“Using our platform, I’m sure we can take on that demand.”

BY CHO YONG-JUN [[email protected]]