 |
Photo courtesy of Yonhap News |
[Alpha Biz= Paul Lee] South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission and Korea Consumer Agency have identified widespread misleading discount practices among major e-commerce platforms, including Coupang, Naver, Gmarket, and 11st.
The authorities said on May 19 that an investigation into 1,335 products revealed cases where retailers inflated discount rates or continued offering lower prices even after promotional periods had ended.
Among 800 items sold during Lunar New Year promotions, 12.8% were found to have artificially increased list prices during the discount period, effectively exaggerating the advertised discount rate. In some cases, base prices were raised to more than three times their pre-promotion levels.
By platform, Coupang recorded the highest proportion of such cases at 23.0%, followed by Naver (13.0%), Gmarket (9.0%), and 11st (6.0%).
Separately, of 535 time-limited promotional items analyzed, 20.2% were found to have maintained or even lowered prices after the promotion ended, undermining the legitimacy of “limited-time discount” claims. Naver had the highest rate of such cases at 37.0%, followed by 11st (35.4%), Gmarket (14.3%), and Coupang (2.2%).
Based on the findings, regulators recommended that the four platforms improve how they display discount information, including providing clearer reference prices and historical pricing data to prevent arbitrary price adjustments.
All four companies have accepted the recommendations and submitted plans to enhance transparency in their pricing and promotional practices.
Alphabiz Reporter Paul Lee(hoondork1977@alphabiz.co.kr)
