Online shopping, which has been growing due to mobile shopping and direct purchases from overseas, has proven an important factor to contribute to the growth of the local courier service industry.
According to the “2015 Statistics of Logistics Industry at Home and Abroad” published by the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), the online shopping amount last year increased 17.7 percent from the previous year to reach 45.3025 trillion won (US$40.3283 billion).
The expansion of the online shopping market is also contributing to the growth of courier service market. The total domestic courier shipments last year rose 7.8 percent compared to the previous year, or 1.62320 billion won (US$1,445,540). The sales in the courier market also increased 6.4 percent, recording 3.9757 trillion won (US$3.5389 billion).
The scale of domestic online shopping exceeded 10 trillion won (US$8.9 billion) in 2005 and 20 trillion won (US$17.8 billion) in 2009. The industry has maintained high growth every year after, surpassing 40 trillion won (US$35.6 billion) in 2013. The size of mobile shopping last year grew rapidly to record 14.8698 trillion won (US$13.2383 billion), marking a sharp rise of 126.7 percent from a year ago, with the cosmetics industry showing the highest growth.
According to an analysis of online shopping sales by product category excluding the segment of services, the growth rate of online shopping for cosmetics was highest last year with 2.6688 trillion won (US$2.3760 billion), a 27.1 percent increase from the previous year, followed by car accessories and household goods with 21.0 percent or 5.1755 trillion won (US$4.6072 billion) growth, communication and home appliances with 20.9 percent or 4.9622 trillion won (US$4.4174 billion), and clothing and fashion with 17.0 percent or 7.3464 trillion won (US$6.5404 billion) in overall growth.
A KCCI representative said, “The growth of the online shopping industry does not show any sign of exhaustion,” adding, “The local courier market is expected to grow continuously as the sales pattern of combining offline and online channels is getting popular in traditional markets, and retailers of local specialties and large retailers both expand their marketing activities through smartphone apps.”
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