The EC Platform from Korea Created Through Collaboration Between Influencers & Marketing Teams, "nugu"

Nowadays, influencer marketing has become indispensable for promoting fashion to the younger generation. Recently, businesses are not just leveraging the popularity of influencers but also seeking tight-knit business models that closely integrate influencers.

The Korean EC platform "nugu" exemplifies this approach. The business model, which advances through the united efforts of influencers and marketing teams, has captured the hearts of many young people. This time, we spoke with Park Ha-min, who oversees nugu's business, to delve deeper into nugu's business model and the expanding possibilities of influencer marketing.

The Potential of Influencer Marketing Discovered in Korea

Could you tell us about the background of nugu's founding?

In the past, I ran a fashion e-commerce business in Korea for about 8 to 9 years and hosted pop-up stores in both Korea and Japan. During one of these events, I met a very stylish individual working as a staff member at the pop-up store. After following their Instagram account, I found they had an impressive following of 80,000 people. Despite such a significant follower base, it felt odd that they were working as a pop-up store staff, and this prompted me to explore the Japanese influencer market and its potential.

While influencer commerce was already flourishing in Korea with well-established sales platforms, I observed that Japan lacked the robust product sourcing infrastructure akin to Korea's Dongdaemun Market, and the sales sites were still on a smaller scale. After reconsidering, I concluded that there was ample potential for commercialization if we could sort out product sourcing and set up proper sales sites, and thus, I began to take action.

Can you briefly introduce nugu?

nugu is a platform for influencer-based fashion and lifestyle commerce. Its main feature is not merely opening a shop for influencers but offering a one-stop service that includes everything from product procurement to content editing, marketing, delivery, customer service, and review management. Instead of simply "providing a site to sell products," we aim to act as a partner, operating as a single team by providing a value chain for the business. Influencers active on nugu highly rate their collaboration with us because it feels more professional compared to other similar sites.

Thanks to these efforts, nugu has exhibited remarkable results in digital content marketing, notably achieving a ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) of 2,000%. This is a significant strength that we continuously strive to improve.

Moreover, recognizing the weaknesses of online-exclusive e-commerce, nugu regularly hosts events such as pop-up stores and flea markets. In a market like Japan, where offline presence is pivotal, online-to-offline integration is essential and a crucial differentiating factor within the influencer market.

Ultimately, all these achievements are the result of rigorously understanding and meeting customer needs. The current business model thrives because customers seek influencers' styling, and nugu fulfills these demands. Moving forward, while customer needs will continue to evolve and we must adapt our business model accordingly, our fundamental philosophy of understanding and satisfying customer needs will remain unchanged.

What distinguishes nugu from other e-commerce platforms?

The biggest factor is the team system where influencers and teams work together as one. Each team working with an influencer consists of members who are highly experienced in Japanese business, with a particular understanding of fashion and cosmetic content.

The business structure, divided between Korea and Japan, does not cause inconvenience but instead leverages each side's strengths. Japanese influencers can visit Korea to procure products directly, while Korean influencers can use the nugu studio in Tokyo, utilizing each headquarters to the fullest as needed to provide the optimal environment.