G Market Opens Online Shopping Mall in Japan

Gmarket, the nation’s largest online market, will make a foray into Japan in the second quarter of the year.

Gmarket started its operation in Japan on a trial basis (www.gmarket.co.jp) on December 31 last year, according to industry sources on Sunday. Beginning April, it will open its official Japanese-version homepage and start its online shopping service in full-swing.

The biggest domestic online retailer is the first domestic online shopping mall to enter overseas markets. Kim Hyo-jong, who is in charge of the global business department of G Market, will head Japan’s division.

Gmarket, an affiliate of online shopping mall Interpark, boasts 14 million subscribers (as of the end of last year) and an annual turnover of 3.25 trillion won.

Contrary to the initial expectation that it would break into the Japanese market in cooperation with Yahoo! Japan since Yahoo! holds 9.1 percent of its share, it decided to make an independent move. It is also planning to enter the U.S. market.

However, its new business plan got mixed reactions from the distribution industry.

E-commerce markets in Korea are somewhat different from those in Japan. In Korea, a large number of unspecified Internet merchants borrow cyber space from an Internet company and sell their wares. By contrast, in Japan, comprehensive online shopping malls are in the mainstream where one company exclusively purchases and sells products.

“The competition is heating up too much as big companies such as SK and GS are jumping into the online shopping mall business,” said an official of an online market. “Existing businesses are finding ways to survive by M&A or advancing into overseas markets.”

Park Ju-beom, a PR manager of Gmarket, said, “Based on know-how accumulated here, we will consolidate our business in Japan by imposing low transaction fees.”

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