Coupang restores services after overnight outage and announces compensation

Coupang restored services in South Korea early on October 9 after an overnight outage disrupted shopping, food orders, streaming and delivery operations. The company later announced customer vouchers and plans to compensate delivery riders and restaurant owners, according to Yonhap, while the precise cause remained under investigation.

The disruption affected the main Coupang shopping platform, Coupang Eats and Coupang Play. It also reached logistics applications used by delivery workers, extending the consequences beyond customers unable to browse or place orders to businesses and drivers trying to complete deliveries.

Coupang access returns after overnight disruption

Yonhap placed the beginning of the disruption around midnight Korean time, while SBS reported simultaneous access errors around 12:30 a.m. The reports therefore do not establish a single precise start time. Both described failures across several Coupang services during the early hours of October 9.

Users initially saw a message asking them to try again later, Yonhap reported. Access began returning around 1 a.m., but problems including an inability to log in continued. Yonhap said access to the platforms returned to normal around 2:30 a.m. Korean time.

Restaurant orders and delivery registration blocked

SBS reported that product searches, ordering and logins failed. Its reporting also described problems with the computerized steps that drivers use to register departures and completed deliveries, leaving workers unable to process their normal delivery tasks through the affected applications.

One restaurant operator interviewed by SBS said an order-completion button would not work, preventing the dispatch of delivery drivers. The operator estimated lost hourly sales at 200,000 to 250,000 won. That estimate reflected one business’s experience, rather than an audited loss or a total across Coupang Eats.

An unnamed early-morning delivery driver told SBS that departure and completion registration were unavailable while facing a 7 a.m. deadline and a workload of 300 to 400 items. Those figures describe that driver’s account and do not establish the workload or delays experienced by every delivery worker.

SBS also described undelivered items accumulating at logistics centers and in delivery vehicles. Its English-language report carries an AI-translation notice; the interview accounts are paraphrased here. Neither SBS nor Yonhap provided a verified aggregate number of delayed deliveries, canceled orders or affected customers.

What Coupang announced about compensation

Later on October 9, Coupang said it planned to offer 5,000-won vouchers to shopping customers whose orders were canceled because of the system failure, Yonhap reported. The announcement concerned compensation for qualifying cancellations; the report did not verify that customers had already received the vouchers.

For Coupang Eats, customers whose food orders were canceled would receive 3,000-won vouchers. Those unable to place an order would receive 1,000 won, according to Yonhap’s account of the company’s announcement. The report did not specify how customers would establish eligibility or when distribution would begin.

Food-delivery riders would be compensated for orders canceled after they had accepted them, and Coupang planned similar compensation for restaurant owners. Yonhap did not specify payment amounts for either group or a distribution timetable, leaving those practical details unresolved in the announcement.

Coupang’s scale and the remaining questions

Yonhap described the U.S.-listed company as having more than 30 million monthly active users. That provides a measure of Coupang’s overall audience, not the number affected by this outage. The reporting does not establish how many users attempted to access each service during the disruption.

Historical figures also show the scale of its food-delivery business. Seoul Economic Daily reported Wiseapp·Retail estimates of 8.45 million weekly active users for Coupang Eats in the second week of May, compared with 15.24 million for Baemin. Those older weekly figures do not measure October usage or outage exposure.

SBS reported that no link between the outage and hacking or another security incident had been confirmed at the time of its report. The investigation into the exact cause remained open; neither report established a final technical diagnosis or said whether Coupang would publish a detailed incident report.