Korean delivery sellers' platform costs climbed 5.2 points to 26.2% of sales

The 21.7% average is not a commission rate: it bundles brokerage commissions, advertising fees and information usage fees into a single line ^[2], so a seller who buys more placement to hold a ranking raises his own reported burden. Delivery app sellers reported 26.2% of monthly sales this year, up 5.2 points from 21.0% ^[3][4][1]. The increase is close to a quarter of what they were paying before it ^[2]. Shopping mall sellers moved from 18.6% to 20.6%, lodging sellers from 17.5% to 18.3% ^[3].

The spread between platforms is wider than the category averages suggest. Coupang Eats sellers reported 27.6%, the highest of the platforms listed, against 17.2% for SSG sellers at the bottom, a gap of 10.4 points ^[5][4]. Individual answers went further, to 45% for a Coupang mall seller and for Baedal Minjok and Coupang Eats sellers, and 40% for Yanolja and Yeogi Eottae sellers ^[6]. A seller at 45% keeps 55 won of every 100 won of sales, against 78.3 won at the survey average ^[7].

Delivery apps already discount by volume. The tiered system sets different brokerage rates according to a seller's sales, and asked what it saved them, 49.4% said nothing had changed, while 35.5% said commissions stayed high even after the reduction ^[12]. The category average rose 5.2 points over the same year ^[4].

Demand for legislation ranks in the same order as cost, with 66.9% of delivery sellers, 62.2% of shopping mall sellers and 50.0% of lodging sellers agreeing a fair-dealing law was needed ^[9]. Reported misconduct ranks differently, at 17.8% of mall sellers, 14.0% of delivery sellers and 9.2% of lodging sellers ^[7]. Among mall sellers, the share wanting a law is 3.5 times the share reporting anything unfair ^[6].

"Small businesses and small business owners are becoming more dependent on platforms every year, while costs such as commissions and advertising fees keep growing and unfair trade practices persist," said Kim Hee-joong, head of the federation's economic policy division ^[13]. He put the remedy in structural terms: "the fundamental solution is to establish a horizontal structure in which sellers are granted autonomy in negotiating transaction terms" ^[14].

Timing is a separate cost. Among mall sellers, 14.9% said settlement took more than 40 days on brokerage and consignment sales, and 12.5% said more than 60 days on direct-purchase and private-brand sales ^[11].

The case against reading this as platforms raising rates sits in the survey's construction. The federation is the sellers' own body, and the figures are what 1,250 respondents reported ^[1]. The survey does not set out platform commission schedules, so a higher posted rate and a larger advertising budget land in the same percentage. If posted brokerage rates at Coupang Eats and Baedal Minjok were flat across the year, the 5.2 points came from sellers outbidding each other for placement. The negotiating autonomy Kim describes would not lower them. In my view the sellers still have the better of it. That 49.4% reported no benefit from a volume discount designed to be visible on an invoice is hard to explain as bid inflation alone ^[12].