Coupang to give 5,000 won credit to customers whose orders were canceled in midnight outage

Coupang is a U.S.-listed company with more than 30 million monthly active users, according to Yonhap ^[13][9]. A 5,000 won credit to every one of them would have come to at least 150 billion won ^[18]. Coupang instead pays per failed transaction. Each line on its schedule needs a canceled order, a rider's recorded trip or an accepted restaurant order to trigger it ^[3][5][6][7].

The food side is where the payments stack ^[17]. Take an Eats order canceled after the rider picked it up: the customer gets a 3,000 won coupon ^[5], the rider gets the full delivery fee ^[6], and the restaurant gets a loss payment once Coupang assesses it ^[7]. One failed order produces three payouts ^[17]. A canceled shopping order draws a single 5,000 won credit ^[3]. That is 2,000 won more than the food customer receives for a paid order that was canceled ^[16].

Coupang's notices set rates per order ^[3][5] and did not disclose how many orders were canceled. The two accounts also differ on how long the window was. Seoul Economic Daily put the outage at about two hours from midnight ^[1]. Yonhap reported that access resumed around 1 a.m. with logins still failing, and that the platforms were back to normal around 2:30 a.m. ^[2]. By that timeline the disruption ran about 150 minutes ^[14].

I think the schedule is built to keep Coupang's cash cost low, or rather, to put most of the customer cost into Coupang's own credit. The largest customer payment is 5,000 won of Coupang Cash, usable for six months ^[3][4], and the Eats payments are coupons ^[5]. Any credit still unused at the six-month limit costs Coupang no cash ^[4]. The view is wrong if Coupang publishes a cancellation count large enough to make the 5,000 won line a real expense, or if the restaurant assessment comes in high ^[7].

"We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and will do our best to ensure the same problem does not happen again," Coupang said in the notice ^[15].