Coupang hosts Oregon Governor Kate Brown and her delegation to discuss the future of commerce
On October 17, Oregon Governor Kate Brown led a delegation of the state’s public and private sector leaders to meet with Coupang executives and discuss the future of commerce. The meeting, which was a part of Oregon’s first trade mission to Asia since 2019, was held at Coupang’s Seolleung Office in Seoul.
As Oregon’s fourth largest export market, Korea is one of the state’s key trade partners, with over $1.6 billion in total exports to the country in 2021. Oregon also imports over $2 billion in goods from Korea each year, making the country its second largest source of imports. Agriculture in particular has been a historically important industry for trade relations—for example, in 2012, Oregon became the first and only state authorized to export fresh blueberries into South Korea. In the meeting, Coupang and the Oregon delegation discussed ways to deepen these relationships further.
The event began with a brief introduction to Coupang from HL Rogers, the company’s General Counsel and Chief Administrative Officer. Rogers described how Coupang has not only broken the tradeoffs between price, selection, and speed for customers, but also broken tradeoffs for society, including for employees, small businesses, and the environment.
HL Rogers, Coupang’s General Counsel and Chief Administrative Officer
“We have built our logistics network completely differently from anyone else in the world,” said Rogers. “We do our logistics end-to-end, and that enables us to do things that would be too expensive for other companies.” He noted, for example, that Coupang’s investments in infrastructure and technology have helped drastically reduce work intensity for employees and cut accident rates to well below the industry average, support small businesses in Korea to grow significantly over the last two years even as those not on Coupang saw revenues decrease, and create the same carbon impact as planting 8 million trees through measures such as decentralized delivery, boxless delivery, and reusable Fresh bags.
Ryan Brown, Representative Director of Coupang Fulfillment Services and Head of EHS
Rogers’ introduction was followed by a presentation from Ryan Brown, the Representative Director of Coupang Fulfillment Services and the head of environment, health, and safety (EHS) at Coupang, who dove deeper into the innovations that enabled the company to break tradeoffs for both customers and society. Brown began with a short video introducing Coupang’s artificial intelligence (AI), which coordinates the company’s logistics operations every step of the way, down to where which item should be placed on which truck for optimal delivery.
Brown explained how the efficiencies from such innovations have enabled Coupang to coordinate its operations nationwide to deliver hundreds of millions of orders quickly, safely, and reliably to customers each year, including of the best-selling frozen Oregon blueberries available on its app. This new model of e-commerce also underpins the company’s win-win model to support not just customers, but also workers, small businesses, and the environment.
An example of Coupang’s logistics innovation
“Our customer experience has to be linked to supporting small businesses, supporting the environment, and ultimately, that’s a benefit for our workers and our customers,” said Brown. “We believe this is the minimum cost of entry to be a responsible company in the time that we live in now, and we take it very seriously. And by taking it very seriously, we recognize we still have a lot to learn, and that’s why we like to do events like this so that we can learn from each other.”
Governor Brown, who last year set the most aggressive timeline in the U.S. for moving to 100% clean electricity sources with House Bill 2021, expressed particular interest in Coupang’s sustainability initiatives to move towards zero waste delivery, zero emission vehicle fleets, and more.
Oregon Governor Kate Brown
Finally, Coupang’s Senior Director of Global E-Commerce Jonathan Burks gave an in-depth presentation on Coupang’s services and operations, focusing on how the company works to help small businesses thrive. In particular, the seamless shopping experience that Coupang offers to nearly 18 million customers in Korea, combined with the massive scale of the country’s e-commerce segment (on track to become the third largest in the world by 2025), presents huge opportunities for small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) around the world.
Jonathan Burks, Coupang’s Senior Director of Global E-Commerce
“One of the main reasons small businesses choose Coupang is because they’re also customers—they love it and they want to be a part of it,” said Burks. He went on to explain how Coupang takes the same philosophy of creating a seamless customer experience to offer a great experience for sellers, such as a crab fisherman living in the coastal city of Tongyeong.
Burks also delved into how Coupang specifically helps small businesses in the U.S., handling everything from customs clearance, inventory management, and last-mile delivery on their behalf through Rocket Jikgu. This U.S. small business partnership model enabled American SMEs such as KY Global, Sports Research, and Oregon Berry to grow revenue significantly, even during the pandemic. Coupang’s win-win model with small businesses drew particular interest from the Oregon delegation, who expressed their desire to explore such opportunities to support the state’s SMEs.
“We were honored to have Governor Kate Brown and her delegation at Coupang, which gave us the opportunity to learn from each other and explore new ways to support customers, small businesses, workers, and the environment,” said a Coupang representative. “We aim to build the future of commerce, and this process must include all stakeholders involved to be successful. We will continue to strengthen relationships and explore opportunities to create the best possible experience for customers, small businesses, and workers around the world.”
Burks also delved into how Coupang specifically helps small businesses in the U.S., handling everything from customs clearance, inventory management, and last-mile delivery on their behalf through Rocket Jikgu. This U.S. small business partnership model enabled American SMEs such as KY Global, Sports Research, and Oregon Berry to grow revenue significantly, even during the pandemic. Coupang’s win-win model with small businesses drew particular interest from the Oregon delegation, who expressed their desire to explore such opportunities to support the state’s SMEs.
“We were honored to have Governor Kate Brown and her delegation at Coupang, which gave us the opportunity to learn from each other and explore new ways to support customers, small businesses, workers, and the environment,” said a Coupang representative. “We aim to build the future of commerce, and this process must include all stakeholders involved to be successful. We will continue to strengthen relationships and explore opportunities to create the best possible experience for customers, small businesses, and workers around the world.”