Neil Mehta

And the early days of that, if you asked people around Korea, they would tell you, we don't need faster delivery. Everything shows up here in two and a half to four days. It's great. It's totally fine. And his view was actually, it's consistent, reliable, fast delivery. You get the stuff you ordered on time, usually within 12 to 24 hours. And that sounds obvious today.

And the early days of that, if you asked people around Korea, they would tell you, we don't need faster delivery. Everything shows up here in two and a half to four days. It's great. It's totally fine. And his view was actually, it's consistent, reliable, fast delivery. You get the stuff you ordered on time, usually within 12 to 24 hours. And that sounds obvious today.

You order something 12 hours later or 24 hours later, it shows up at your door. Now it's called the rocket experience at Coupang. But at the time, building that, it sounds easy. Open a warehouse, put a bunch of stuff into that warehouse, hire a bunch of drivers, work with those drivers to fill up their trucks, deliver it to the door, take it off.

You order something 12 hours later or 24 hours later, it shows up at your door. Now it's called the rocket experience at Coupang. But at the time, building that, it sounds easy. Open a warehouse, put a bunch of stuff into that warehouse, hire a bunch of drivers, work with those drivers to fill up their trucks, deliver it to the door, take it off.

Now, there's a bunch of stuff that breaks when you actually try to build that experience step by step. First thing is the unit economics completely break. Second, to actually drive throughput through these, do you buy from manufacturers? How much do you buy from manufacturers? What do you do about your inventory turns? How do you service the right stuff on a website?

Now, there's a bunch of stuff that breaks when you actually try to build that experience step by step. First thing is the unit economics completely break. Second, to actually drive throughput through these, do you buy from manufacturers? How much do you buy from manufacturers? What do you do about your inventory turns? How do you service the right stuff on a website?

It is extraordinarily hard to go build all that stuff. And it took years. It took two to four years to really start to build that flywheel so it worked. And what did it entail to build a jaw-dropping customer experience? It took new technology. Coupang built not just a new warehouse management system, from what the consumer touches on a website, all the way down to new routing software.

It is extraordinarily hard to go build all that stuff. And it took years. It took two to four years to really start to build that flywheel so it worked. And what did it entail to build a jaw-dropping customer experience? It took new technology. Coupang built not just a new warehouse management system, from what the consumer touches on a website, all the way down to new routing software.

FedEx famously never wants a driver to take the left turn because it takes a little bit more time. It was like that kind of optimization. It was infrastructure. It was building warehouses that were the size of football fields in place that doesn't have a lot of space, by the way, in Korea.

FedEx famously never wants a driver to take the left turn because it takes a little bit more time. It was like that kind of optimization. It was infrastructure. It was building warehouses that were the size of football fields in place that doesn't have a lot of space, by the way, in Korea.

It was building delivery camps and it was building localized distribution points where you have thousands of apartments to be able to make sure you could have even people run up and down the apartment to deliver something. It was making sure that you had the right packaging so that didn't get stuck with lots and lots of boxes.

It was building delivery camps and it was building localized distribution points where you have thousands of apartments to be able to make sure you could have even people run up and down the apartment to deliver something. It was making sure that you had the right packaging so that didn't get stuck with lots and lots of boxes.

It came down to where do you leave it outside someone's door so you don't wake them up when you deliver it at 6 a.m. to make sure it's safe. When you add all those things together, actually, the way we came up with the term is BOM would show us, you'd see in the cohort behavior, average retention pre-1P delivery was probably in the 30s overall for the market, not for Coupang specifically.

It came down to where do you leave it outside someone's door so you don't wake them up when you deliver it at 6 a.m. to make sure it's safe. When you add all those things together, actually, the way we came up with the term is BOM would show us, you'd see in the cohort behavior, average retention pre-1P delivery was probably in the 30s overall for the market, not for Coupang specifically.

Coupang for Rocket, which was eventually called Rocket through 1P capability was in the 60s on a core retention basis. So it was clearly working, but that wasn't the coolest part about it. The coolest part is when we would ask customers about their experience. We do these video recordings and Coupang will do them as well. I remember multiple of the videos, the woman was crying.

Coupang for Rocket, which was eventually called Rocket through 1P capability was in the 60s on a core retention basis. So it was clearly working, but that wasn't the coolest part about it. The coolest part is when we would ask customers about their experience. We do these video recordings and Coupang will do them as well. I remember multiple of the videos, the woman was crying.

The mom of the house was crying because the diapers were showing up the morning of and she didn't have to carry these giant boxes home from the store. She's like, if you took this away from me, I don't know what I would do. Please don't take this away from me. That is not an MPS score of nine. That is a jaw dropping customer experience. That is incredible. Yeah.

The mom of the house was crying because the diapers were showing up the morning of and she didn't have to carry these giant boxes home from the store. She's like, if you took this away from me, I don't know what I would do. Please don't take this away from me. That is not an MPS score of nine. That is a jaw dropping customer experience. That is incredible. Yeah.

we think of ourselves as very long-term investors. And if you really want to understand how long, I've been on the board for about 15 years, and this is public information, just last quarter, we were buying more shares. So it tells you- More than just five of eight rounds. Yes, exactly. We're still actively investing and helping where we can in the company.

we think of ourselves as very long-term investors. And if you really want to understand how long, I've been on the board for about 15 years, and this is public information, just last quarter, we were buying more shares. So it tells you- More than just five of eight rounds. Yes, exactly. We're still actively investing and helping where we can in the company.