Jeju tangerine is at its best during winter season[Courtesy of Kakao Corp.]
Kakao Corp. a Korean internet company which owns social networking service “KakaoTalk”, launched “Kakao Farmer Jeju” service (https://farmer.kakao.com) Thursday. The service sells tangerine, which is a regional specialty of Jeju Island.
O2O (online to offline) service is hot in countries with good internet-based infrastructure. It connects businesses to consumers by being an intermediary in between. Well known O2O services are taxi service Uber, connecting independent taxi drivers to customers, and Korean service “Yogiyo” which, connects food delivery stores to its customers.
Kakao Farmer Jeju is only available for three months. It’s because Jeju tangerines are at its best during winter times, from November to February. Also, Kakao Farmer Jeju is a test platform for Kakao to figure out if the O2O service will gain solid ground or not.
The tangerines sold at the service will be quality-controlled by Kakao Farmer Jeju, ensuring its taste. The product will be delivered to customers within three to seven days. It is priced KR\ 15,000 per five kilograms and can be bought with a few taps in the KakaoTalk application.
Kakao expects about 750 tons of tangerine will be distributed during its test period and it will gather big data such as purchase history, suggestions to friends to index and analyze the market.
Lee sang-geun, project manager of Kakao Farmer Jeju, came up with the O2O marketing idea from his experience in Jeju Island. Kakao has a branch in Jeju ten years ago. “Kakao had gathered much information and human network resource in Jeju for last ten years. We have been wondering on how to use the asset in the right place” he said.
“After much consideration, we decided to use the information and network to improve distribution process of high-quality tangerines, which is a specialty from Jeju.” He added. Kakao has high hope that the service will help local tangerine farmers.
아주경제 박세진 기자 = swatchsjp@ajunews.com
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
