Gmarket, Under Shinsegae Group, Sees Double-Digit GMV Growth After Forming Joint Venture with Alibaba

Since Shinsegae Group and Alibaba International established a joint venture last year, the performance of Shinsegae's e-commerce platform Gmarket has accelerated significantly. The 'reverse cross-border shopping' business has achieved breakthrough progress in overseas markets, while its domestic market has also shown a strong recovery trend. Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) has achieved double-digit growth, indicating that its 'leap forward' process is progressing faster than expected.

This series of impressive results stems from the deep synergy between Shinsegae Group and Alibaba following the completion of the joint venture approval in September 2025. Under the strategy of 'Selling Korean Products Globally', Gmarket has successfully integrated a large number of high-quality Korean products from its platform into Lazada, the Southeast Asian e-commerce platform owned by Alibaba.

As of December 2025, approximately 7,000 Gmarket sellers had reached about 160 million consumers in Southeast Asia through Lazada, listing over 1.2 million products, with related transaction volumes experiencing several-fold growth at times. Entering 2026, this growth momentum has continued. In March alone, the sales volume achieved by Gmarket sellers through the Lazada platform increased by nearly 150% compared to January. During Lazada's major promotional events, sales by Gmarket sellers in the Southeast Asian market hit a record high since the cooperation began.

Gmarket plans to increase the number of linked products on the Lazada platform to 2.5 times the level at the beginning of the year within this year and aims to expand its business to more regions such as West Asia and Europe in the future, striving to achieve an annual cross-border export transaction volume exceeding 1 trillion Korean Won within the next five years.

While advancing rapidly in overseas markets, Gmarket's domestic business in South Korea is also performing well across the board. Recent data released by Gmarket shows that its GMV in March increased by 12% year-on-year, with growth momentum accelerating significantly towards the end of the first quarter. Among this, the 'Direct Access GMV'—comprising purchases completed by users directly visiting the website or app—grew 13% year-on-year, and the website purchase conversion rate improved by 5%, reflecting an enhancement in platform user loyalty.

As the foundation for platform development, Gmarket's seller ecosystem is also continuously expanding. As of March, the number of registered sellers on the platform reached 660,000, an increase of 36,000 compared to the same period last year. The number of 'profitable sellers' with monthly sales exceeding 50 million Korean Won also achieved a 3% year-on-year increase.

This is interpreted as evidence that Gmarket's 'seller-centric' investment strategy is yielding results. Gmarket is proceeding as planned with its commitment to invest 500 billion Korean Won this year to support seller growth. Gmarket CEO James Chang (Jang Seung-hwan) stated to Korean media: 'To regain our position as the top platform-based e-commerce company in Korea, we will fully drive scalable growth this year and next, and begin achieving formal profitability from 2028. Gmarket is gradually growing into a platform most trusted and loved by customers and sellers.'