[Anchor]

An access outage occurred across all Coupang-affiliated apps overnight. Although service was restored after about two hours, food ordering and delivery operations were paralyzed for a time. Coupang explained that it was a temporary error.

Reporter Min Gyeongho has the details.

[Reporter]

This is the application execution screen for South Korea's largest e-commerce platform, Coupang.

Product searches, orders, and even logins are unavailable.

[Coupang Customer: I clicked to read a review, and it just said 'No product available.' So I was wondering what was going on...]

Starting around 12:30 a.m. today (October 9), connection errors occurred simultaneously across Coupang-affiliated services, including the main Coupang app, the delivery app Coupang Eats, and the OTT platform Coupang Play.

At the time, not only customers using the services but also small business owners and delivery workers faced disruptions as order processing and deliveries were blocked, leaving them anxious and frustrated.

[Coupang Eats Partner: We need to press the cooking completion button so that delivery drivers can be dispatched, but the button wouldn't work... In terms of hourly sales, it's a loss of about 200,000 to 250,000 won.]

Connection errors also occurred on Coupang's logistics-related applications, making electronic processing such as starting and completing deliveries impossible, which caused confusion in the delivery field.

With the delivery process itself paralyzed, undelivered items piled up at logistics centers and delivery vehicles.

[Coupang Early Morning Delivery Driver: When delivering, we need to register the departure and completion. That itself is not working. The delivery deadline is strictly 7 a.m., but errors are occurring. We are supposed to deliver 300 to 400 items, but everything is at a complete standstill right now.]

The Coupang service outage returned to normal after two and a half hours. Coupang later explained through a notice that "a temporary error occurred during the service upgrade process."

(Camera and Lighting: Yang Jihoon | Video Editing: Park Nayoung)