[Anchor]

Overnight, access failures occurred across all Coupang applications. Although service was restored in about two hours, food orders and delivery operations were temporarily paralyzed. Coupang has announced plans to compensate customers and workers who suffered damages.

Reporter Min Gyeongho has the details.

[Reporter]

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

Product searches, orders, and even logins are not working.

[Coupang User: I clicked to read a review, and it just said 'Product not available.' So I wondered what was going on.]

Starting around 12:30 AM today, simultaneous connection errors occurred across Coupang-affiliated services, including the main shopping app, the delivery app Coupang Eats, and the OTT platform Coupang Play.

For a time, not only regular customers, but also small business owners and delivery workers faced disruptions, leaving them anxious as order processing and deliveries came to a halt.

[Coupang Eats Partner: We need to press the 'cooking complete' button for delivery drivers to be dispatched, but the button wouldn't press... In terms of hourly sales, the losses amount to 200,000 to 250,000 KRW.]

Logistics-related applications of Coupang also experienced connection errors, making computer processing for starting and completing deliveries impossible, which caused confusion in the field.

With the delivery process itself paralyzed, logistics centers and delivery vehicles were piled high with undelivered items.

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

The Coupang connection outage returned to normal after two and a half hours. Through a subsequent notice, Coupang explained that a temporary error occurred during the service upgrade process.

Coupang stated that it will provide 5,000 KRW in Coupang Cash to customers whose orders were canceled, issue a 3,000 KRW coupon to customers whose food orders through Coupang Eats were canceled, and also compensate affected restaurant owners and delivery riders.

(Photo: Yang Jihoon, Video Editing: Park Nayoung)