"Pie in the Sky"... What Caused the Domino's Pizza and Paris Baguette 'Sold-Out Chaos'?

Discount Coupons from SKT's "T Membership Customer Appreciation Event"
Empty Bread Shelves and Paralyzed Websites

Due to SK Telecom's "T Membership Customer Appreciation Event," a surge in orders at Domino's Pizza and Paris Baguette led to website outages and sold-out products.

An empty display shelf at a Paris Baguette store in Seoul due to the SKT Customer Appreciation Event. Screenshot from social networking service (SNS).

According to the retail industry and other sources on the 24th, as of 5 p.m. that day, the Domino's Pizza website and application (app) were inaccessible. This was because SKT has been selecting three partner companies each month since this month through December to offer discounts of over 50% as a consumer benefit. Approximately 22.49 million SKT subscribers can receive discount coupons for partner companies through the T Membership app during the event period. As a result, a flood of orders was placed with the participating partners, causing these issues.

In particular, Domino's Pizza experienced repeated delays in website and app access during the first weekend of the 50-60% discount on August 23-24. Since the discount coupons could only be used on the Domino's Pizza website or app, this further contributed to the site outages. On various social networking services (SNS), users posted complaints such as "Domino's Pizza chaos" and "Every menu I select in the app is out of stock." SKT is offering a 50% discount (up to 25,000 won) on Domino's Pizza delivery and a 60% discount (up to 30,000 won) on takeout until September 4.

A similar situation occurred at Paris Baguette stores. Previously, SKT offered a 50% discount (up to 10,000 won) at Paris Baguette locations. Photos of empty display shelves at Paris Baguette stores were shared on SNS, with users commenting, "Is there a war going on?" "I'm surprised there isn't a single piece of bread left," "The staff said no more bread would be available," "Koreans live on bread power," and "Even with a coupon, you can't buy anything-it's just pie in the sky."

Additionally, SKT has been offering a free tall-sized Americano at Starbucks, another partner this month, since August 1. Since the redemption period lasts until September 30, there has not been a "chaos event" at Starbucks. Furthermore, the discount plans for after September have not yet been announced. SKT plans to invest approximately 500 billion won in this year's customer appreciation package alone.

Meanwhile, as a result of the Customer Appreciation Event, which SKT is conducting to restore customer trust, the number of mobile number porting cases-which had surged after the "penalty exemption" decision-has now declined. Previously, between July 5 and 14, when SKT exempted penalty fees, the daily number of porting cases ranged from 22,657 to 61,166. However, this week, the daily number of porting cases reportedly fell below 10,000.