CU Builds Industry's Largest Delivery Service... Joins 'Naver Easy Order'

[Asia Economy Reporter Seungjin Lee] CU is expanding its delivery service to portal sites.

BGF Retail, which operates CU, announced on the 2nd that it has signed a partnership agreement with Naver for integrated platform management services and will implement a delivery service starting in March that delivers products purchased through Naver Easy Order directly to customers' doorsteps, the first in the industry.

The pilot stores for this service are CU Seolleung Station Branch and CU Sillim Cafe Branch, selected in areas dense with companies and residential neighborhoods. After a test operation throughout March, the plan is to expand to 3,000 stores nationwide within the first half of the year. Order mediation and delivery will be handled by Mesh Korea’s Vroong OMS.

Customers can order about 260 products from stores within a 1.5 km radius by accessing Naver on their mobile devices and searching for CU without installing a separate app. Available hours are from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., with a minimum order amount of 10,000 KRW and a delivery fee of 3,000 KRW.

From the store perspective, CU expects to enhance operational convenience by combining the existing POS (Point of Sale Information Management System) and inventory linkage system, and above all, to significantly strengthen profitability by expanding sales channels that can increase additional store revenue.

Meanwhile, CU started the delivery service in 2010, the first in the industry. It has established a delivery system optimized for convenience stores with single-person work shifts and introduced the third-generation delivery service last year through a partnership with the mobile platform Yogiyo. It is approaching over 5,000 nationwide operating stores, the largest in the industry, within the first quarter of this year.

In recent years, as the delivery industry has boomed, convenience store delivery services have also grown significantly. CU’s total delivery service sales have increased by an average of 25% quarterly, which has translated into additional sales for stores.

In line with this, a delivery-only 1+1 promotion was launched last month. It received great customer response, showing about 20% higher usage than usual, and top-performing stores in delivery received up to 200 orders per day.

Jung Hae Cho, Head of the Service Platform Team at BGF Retail, said, “By building the largest delivery infrastructure in the industry, CU is improving shopping convenience for customers as well as increasing profitability for franchise stores,” adding, “We plan to continuously upgrade our service capabilities based on feedback from customers and franchise owners.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.