Workers at Oasis’s logistics center in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, check and pack customer orders with a mobile app. About 400 workers in logistics facilities are 100% full-time employees. Oasis offer
With the motto of’popularization of organic farming’, Oasis, which jumped into early morning delivery of fresh food in August 2018, is drawing attention due to the growth of a storm. Last year’s operating profit estimate was about 10 billion won. It increased more than ten times from 2019 (960 million won). Sales are also estimated to have more than doubled to KRW 250 billion. The substantial growth of Oasis contrasts with the focus of distribution startups on growing their appearance in the red. Seeing this potential, domestic and foreign investors including Kakao Investment (5 billion won) invested a total of 41.6 billion won last year.
○’Powerful’ in on-off integrated fresh food
Oasis is considered to be Market Curly’s only opponent. The common denominator of the two is that it is a distribution service that delivers fresh food quickly through logistics innovation combined with information technology (IT). The rest are almost the opposite.
First of all, the founder’s background is different. Seul-ah Kim, founder of Market Curly, attracted an investment of 420 billion won, receiving a splendid spotlight as a student in the United States. Kim Young-joon, founder of Oasis (Chairman of the Board of Directors), is a’soil spoon entrepreneur’ who has gone through all prenatal treatments in the distribution market, from semiconductor engineers to charcoal products distribution to organic lifestyle cooperatives.
It is also in contrast that Oasis started offline. Chairman Kim started organic distribution in 2011 under the mission of Woori Networks. A total of 39 offline distribution stores started in this way, including Deungchon in Seoul, which opened earlier this month. These offline stores are a competitive background that allows consumers to find what they ordered via mobile at nearby stores, and to keep inventory rates close to’zero’ in Oasis.
In marketing, the actions of Oasis with competitors such as Market Curly are the opposite. Jeon Ji-hyun (Market Curly) and Gong Gong (Sep.com) are expanding their awareness through aggressive marketing with top-notch CF models in Korea, while Oasis is quietly expanding its market share without changing star marketing.
○Catch both cost performance and performance
Performance is more contrasting. As the proportion of online sales increased compared to offline last year, operating profit is also improving significantly. Ahn Joon-hyung, vice president of Oasis, said, “By the third quarter of last year, we had an operating profit of about 7 billion won.” Considering that’Zipcock consumption’ reached its peak in the fourth quarter of last year, the annual operating profit is estimated to have exceeded 10 billion won.
The biggest competitiveness of Oasis is cost performance. Oasis maintains close to 100% of direct purchases from production areas. About 70% of the products handled are eco-friendly and organic fresh foods. The number of items sold is inevitably smaller than that of hypermarkets, but thanks to the reduction in distribution stages, it is possible to sell at the lowest price. For example, 2200 won for two organic tofu and 2900 won for 10 sprouted fertilized eggs. It is half the price compared to online malls of hypermarkets.
○ Increase productivity by developing own logistics system
The parent company, JierSoft, is playing a part in the background of Oasis’s ability to capture the’two rabbits’, which is cost-performance and surplus. ZaireSoft is a listed company for software development, and Chairman Kim is the CEO. Jiersoft is in charge of software development necessary for Oasis’ productivity improvement. Vice President Ahn said, “I visited the US Amazon and Okado in the UK for many years to study logistics efficiency.” did.
This is the mobile app called’Oasis Route’. Workers can check the entire process of ordering, warehousing, storage, sorting, packaging, and delivery through the app in real time. Oasis is pursuing patent registration for this system.
Another potential of Oasis that the retail industry is paying attention to is collaboration with Kakao. Kakao Investment stated in its investment contract with Oasis as a strategic investor, not a simple financial investor. An official in the distribution industry said, “As Naver added grocery shopping, Kakao Commerce is also very interested in the fresh food online delivery market. We will have to see if Oasis will become the wing of Kakao.”
Reporter Park Dong-hui [email protected]