Kakao 'Outage' Sparks Trouble in Retail Industry...Order and Payment Failures Continue

Damage to Distribution Companies Linked to Kakao Services

[Asia Economy Reporter Eunmo Koo] The KakaoTalk 'blackout' incident, known as the 'national messenger,' caused service disruptions in the distribution industry, which provides KakaoPay payment and gift services, leading to consumer inconvenience.

According to the distribution industry on the 17th, the KakaoTalk outage mainly caused disruptions in homepage access, KakaoPay payments, and order delivery notification functions.

Homeplus announced on the 15th on its online homepage and mobile app that "Kakao account-linked services such as KakaoPay payment, Kakao login, Kakao membership registration, Kakao 1:1 inquiry, and KakaoTalk order and delivery notifications are not functioning properly." A Homeplus official explained, "In the case of order delivery notification talks, we tried to reduce consumer inconvenience by running them in parallel with text message (SMS) alerts."

Market Kurly also posted on its homepage and app that some services such as KakaoPay payment and KakaoTalk gifting were difficult to use. The notice at the time included that most services linked with Kakao, such as KakaoPay payment, new delivery address registration, membership registration, and KakaoTalk gifting, were unavailable.

Olive Young informed that some functions, including the ‘Today Dream’ pickup service, were suspended due to Kakao service disruptions. Today Dream is a service where customers select a store that has the desired product in stock and apply for pickup to receive the product directly from the store.

At Starbucks stores nationwide, payments using Kakao Gift mobile vouchers and some delivery order services were unavailable. Starbucks Korea announced through its application and other channels that "some services are not operating normally" and promised to "take swift action."

KGC Ginseng Corporation, which operates the red ginseng brand Jeonggwanjang, also experienced a halt in gifting and shopping services, causing sales of related products to be suspended for more than a day. KGC Ginseng Corporation stated, "Recovery has been made, and normal sales are now taking place," adding, "It is still difficult to estimate the amount of damage."

Fashion companies were no exception. LF’s ‘LF Mall’ experienced issues on the evening of the 15th, where consumers waiting for ‘hot deals’ (discount events) faced a non-functioning Kakao-linked address input system, and sales of brands listed on KakaoTalk gifting were temporarily suspended. Additionally, although KakaoPay payment and order cancellation functions have now been restored, Zigzag, a clothing shopping mall operated by KakaoStyle, also faced restrictions in using Kakao-linked services.

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