Amazon teams up with SK’s 11Street to offer Global Store for Koreans

SK Telecom Co.’s e-commerce platform 11Street Co. has teamed up with Amazon, the world’s largest online shopping mall, to offer the US company’s shopping service in Korean for Korean consumers.

The Amazon Global Store service will be available on 11Street’s online mall starting Aug. 31, the Korean company said on Wednesday.

Through the service, Korean consumers can search for tens of millions of goods sold by Amazon in Korean and pay in the Korean currency using SK Pay and other credit cards, it said.

The partnership marks Amazon’s first shopping service through a local shopping mall operator. In 12 other countries, Amazon operates its Global Store service on its own.

The joint service comes as SK Telecom, Korea’s top mobile carrier, aims to expand its business into the subscription e-commerce market via 11Street.

T UNIVERSE

On Wednesday, 11Street unveiled a new subscription brand, T Universe, which offers its subscribers discounts for products and services with Korean and global partners at a monthly subscription fee of less than 10,000 won ($8.6).

Its partners include Amazon, Starbucks, Korean bakery chain Paris Baguette, Korea’s top discount chain operator E-Mart Co. and food delivery app Baedal Minjok, known as Baemin.

T Universe offers two subscription plans: A 4,900 won “Mini Universe Pass” and a 9,900 won “All Universe Pass.”

With the plans, T Universe subscribers can receive goods they choose from an initial offering of 160,000 products on Amazon within four to six days free of shipping charges, according to 11Street.

SK Telecom said it aims to have 36 million subscribers to the T Universe service and achieve an annual gross merchandise value of 8 trillion won by 2025.

With the Amazon-11Street partnership, industry officials said the number of Korean consumers directly purchasing products from overseas online shopping malls will significantly increase in coming years.

GROWING DIRECT OVERSEAS PURCHASING

According to Statistics Korea, Koreans’ direct purchases through foreign e-commerce platforms rose 38% to 4.11 trillion won in 2020 from 2.97 trillion won in 2018.

In the second quarter of this year, Korean purchases through overseas shopping malls increased 22.6% to 1.1 trillion won from a year ago. The direct purchasing market is forecast to grow to about 6 trillion won by the end of this year, according to industry estimates.

SK Telecom’s partnership with Amazon comes as 11Street lags behind SoftBank-backed Coupang Corp., Korea’s top internet portal Naver Corp. and other e-commerce platform operators.

In November of last year, SK Telecom and Amazon agreed to cooperate in the e-commerce business, including a possible purchase of a stake in 11Street by the US online shopping giant.

The two companies will decide on the size of Amazon’s equity investment in 11Street soon, according to industry officials.

Write to Dong-Hui Park and Han-Gyeol Seon at donghuip@hankyung.com
In-Soo Nam edited this article.