Convenience store pickup trades on Junggonara to carry fees for first time

Junggonara, a secondhand trading platform, will begin charging escrow fees on its contactless "convenience store pickup" service operated in partnership with Seven-Eleven.

According to industry sources Tuesday, Junggonara plans to apply escrow fees to the Seven-Eleven pickup service starting Oct. 7. The service had previously been free of such charges, but sellers will now be charged 2.5 percent and buyers 3.5 percent.

Launched in 2023 through a partnership between the two companies, the convenience store pickup service allows buyers and sellers to complete transactions without meeting in person. Sellers drop off items at a designated Seven-Eleven location, and buyers collect them from the same store.

Junggonara said the fees were being introduced "to ensure smooth operation of the partnership service and provide stable service." The platform currently applies the same 2.5 percent seller and 3.5 percent buyer escrow fees to standard transactions.

A Junggonara official said the pickup service had offered the escrow fee waiver to encourage adoption. "This change does not introduce a new fee," the official said. "It reflects the end of a temporary promotion that had waived escrow fees specifically for convenience store pickup trades."

More secondhand platforms are turning to convenience stores as delivery and pickup hubs, driven by growing transaction volumes and the stores' accessibility. Seven-Eleven said parcel deliveries processed through its Junggonara partnership surged 316 percent in the first half of this year compared with the same period last year, while pickup transactions rose 22 percent over the same period.

Beyond the pickup service, Junggonara also lets users arrange parcel deliveries through CU, GS25 and Seven-Eleven. Karrot introduced a convenience store parcel booking feature linked to GS25 and CU last year. Bungaejangter also allows users to book parcel deliveries directly through Seven-Eleven, GS25, CU and E-mart24 from within its app.

Secondhand platforms have broadly been restructuring their fee policies around profitability. Junggonara introduced a 1 percent seller fee last year and then raised the seller escrow fee from 1 percent to 2.5 percent in late July. Bungaejangter earlier raised its sales commission for general sellers from 3.5 percent to 6 percent and for professional sellers to as much as 10 percent, effective last September.

Some in the industry see the push to boost profitability as tied to a planned sale of the company. A consortium comprising Eugene Asset Management, Opus Private Equity, NH Investment PE and Lotte Shopping is expected to launch a sale process for Junggonara as early as the second half of this year. The consortium acquired a 93.9 percent stake in Junggonara in June 2021 for approximately 110 billion won ($81.2 million).