"70% of South Korea’s 52 million inhabitants lives within just 7 miles of a Coupang fulfillment center. It has over 25 million sq ft of logistics space, or ~2 sq ft for every South Korean. In comparison, Amazon has 125 million sq ft. in the US. If we just count its 100 million prime subscribers, that’s 1.3 sq ft per person. Relative to Amazon, Coupang has over-provisioned logistics resources per person by more than 60%."
25mil sq ft for 52 mil people is ~0.5 sqft/person isn't it? How is it 2 sq ft/person? What am I missing?
Oh whoops. Math. Yes you're right. 0.5 sq/person. I still believe they've overprovisioned relative to US though because Amazon isn't the entire e-comm market.
A better comparison between Amazon and Coupang would be between large metropolitan areas. For example, N Korea vs. the combined LA / San Diego market. It would also be useful to consider household incomes. As rural telephone companies will tell you, it doesn't make a lot of business sense to invest in areas that have sparse income and population. Amazon has same day delivery in significant places already. The solution to returns is big but not complicated: The same people that deliver you packages pick up returns. From what I can tell, Amazon is building its van fleet out as fast as it can. I don't see payment services as a differentiator. In the end, consumers just put their credit card numbers into whatever fields they are given by the e-commerce website they are buying from.
"70% of South Korea’s 52 million inhabitants lives within just 7 miles of a Coupang fulfillment center. It has over 25 million sq ft of logistics space, or ~2 sq ft for every South Korean. In comparison, Amazon has 125 million sq ft. in the US. If we just count its 100 million prime subscribers, that’s 1.3 sq ft per person. Relative to Amazon, Coupang has over-provisioned logistics resources per person by more than 60%."
25mil sq ft for 52 mil people is ~0.5 sqft/person isn't it? How is it 2 sq ft/person? What am I missing?
Oh whoops. Math. Yes you're right. 0.5 sq/person. I still believe they've overprovisioned relative to US though because Amazon isn't the entire e-comm market.
Good article, but you are so ignorant to claim that Macau is a city-NATION. It is not.
A better comparison between Amazon and Coupang would be between large metropolitan areas. For example, N Korea vs. the combined LA / San Diego market. It would also be useful to consider household incomes. As rural telephone companies will tell you, it doesn't make a lot of business sense to invest in areas that have sparse income and population. Amazon has same day delivery in significant places already. The solution to returns is big but not complicated: The same people that deliver you packages pick up returns. From what I can tell, Amazon is building its van fleet out as fast as it can. I don't see payment services as a differentiator. In the end, consumers just put their credit card numbers into whatever fields they are given by the e-commerce website they are buying from.