NAVER : Fulfillment Alliance Alleviates Logistics Issues for Beginner Smart Store Sellers

NAVER Fulfillment Alliance Alleviates Logistics Issues for Beginner Smart Store Sellers

- More than 60% of merchants utilizing NAVER's Fulfillment Alliance (NFA) are new sellers who opened Smart Stores last year

- NFA services to evolve in line with the initial needs of new small businesses seeking a variety of logistics solutions

- NAVER's big data and AI technology to improve NFA, including logistics demand forecasting

2021-12-14

NAVER Corporation (KRX: 035420) announced today that its data-based fulfillment platform, NAVER Fulfillment Alliance (NFA), has reduced the logistic challenges of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the early stages of business. New SMEs with a short business tenure and those with small transaction amounts account for more than half of all sellers using NFA.

NFA is an online platform that connects SMEs with various established logistics providers and startups to increase the competitiveness of NAVER Smart Store sellers. NAVER is currently partnered with seven fulfillment companies including CJ Logistics, OurBox, wekeep, FASSTO, Poomgo, Dealibird and SELPI.

■ Helping new and small scale sellers concentrate on business operations through efficient resource management

More than 60% of sellers using NFA are those who have opened Smart Stores after 2020, and 70% of them are small businesses transacting monthly amounts of less than KRW 8 million. 72% of sellers using NFA previously handled their own logistics.

NAVER established NFA to support SMEs to efficiently manage logistics processes, such as packaging, delivery, and stock management, allowing them to focus more on scaling their businesses faster. SMEs that have had difficulty using fulfillment services due to limited accessibility to business information, such as unit selling price and product volumes, can take advantage of NFA to set up custom fulfillment systems.

By outsourcing fulfillment through NFA, sellers have been able to focus on sales and marketing and have found great success. The average monthly shipping volume of Smart Store sellers increased by 103% as a result of using NFA.

■ Over 10,000 inquiries received on NFA, driving up the number of sellers using NFA and increasing their shipment volume

More sellers are showing interest in NFA fulfillment services. Since the launch of NFA, NAVER has received over 10,000 inquiries on the service in the first three months, with some fulfillment companies garnering more than 10 times the number of inquiries per day compared to before joining the alliance.

The number of sellers using NFA has also grown, recording a 188% increase in two months. As a result, the monthly parcel shipping volume of fulfillment companies on the NFA platform also increased by 177%.

"Previously, warehousing, shipping, stock management and product returns took up a lot of resources. About half of customer service functions are logistics-related, and NFA has allowed us to quickly respond to our customers' needs," said Hongseok Shin, a seller of JustNine who is fulfilling orders through NFA. "Our store rating has also improved through our upgraded fulfillment system."

■ NAVER to expand logistics options and advance NFA through demand-based solutions

NAVER will continue to focus on upgrading NFA as a technology-based fulfillment platform. In the future, it plans to introduce logistics solutions based on demand forecasting that combines AI and data, and intends to support SMEs in designing fulfillment services using cutting-edge technology.

In addition, the NFA portfolio will be expanded so that SMEs can offer more value to users while utilizing various logistics solutions based on business models and products, such as quick commerce, premium delivery and nominated day delivery.

"Through NFA, SMEs are starting to strengthen their overall businesses while reducing logistics concerns," said Mr. Kim Pyeong-song, executive officer of NAVER Business Development. "Based on data and AI, we will make efforts to provide SMEs with more diverse logistics options to help them focus more on core business operations."

Note: This press release is based on sellers using 5 fulfillment companies within the NFA ecosystem including 4PL partners and CJ Logistics.