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Kul Bhushan · · 1 min readReport: South Korean ecommerce giant draws public ire over warehouse fire
“South Korean ecommerce giant Coupang is facing a potential consumer boycott after a logistics center warehouse blaze left a firefighter dead, the latest in a series of unflattering incidents for a company that wants to make itself indispensable to shoppers,” reported Nikkei Asia.
Details:
- Some users are deleting their Coupang accounts in an effort to highlight poor and unsafe work conditions at the company’s warehouses.
- The ecommerce firm denied that its warehouses were unsafe, saying that the company had hired hundreds of safety experts and invested in workplace safety.
Context:
- The development comes after an outbreak of Covid-19 at one of Coupang’s warehouses put the company in the government’s radar. Officials have said that the ecommerce firm failed to ensure safety norms to prevent the spread of the virus.
- Coupang is estimated to have about 15 million customers. The company raised US$4.6 billion from its US listing in March and is looking to expand to international markets, including Japan.
Editing by Miguel Cordon Jaclyn Tiu
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