One out of every five South Koreans visits Danggeun Market, hyperlocal secondhand exchange, at least once a week.

According to Danggeun Market, known as Karrot overseas, its number of weekly active users (WAU) surpassed 10 million in March, a milestone that reflects more users are engaged in buying and selling of their secondhand goods in their neighborhood.

Given that 20 million users are subscribed to the app, more than half of them use its service more than once every week.

The Korean startup also said that nearly 10 million users have sold secondhand goods at least one time, with 93.3 percent of its subscribers engaged both in buying and selling.

The marketplace launched in 2015 is lauded for its simple, mobile phone number-based subscription service, which allows easy access for the digital vulnerable group to the app. It also restricts its peer-to-peer buying and selling listings of secondhand goods from participants located within a limited local community to prevent scams. Consumers using the app trade their goods mostly in person as a safety measure.

The app’s monthly active users also more than doubled from 6.6 million in March last year to 16 million this year. The service is offered to 6,577 local communities in Korea, and available also to people in the United States, Canada, and United Kingdom.

Its growing popularity drew big names into the secondhand marketplace and hyperlocal business concept.

In December last year, the country’s internet giant Naver launched a community service called Neighbor that is serviced through its cafe where users are able to upload items for secondhand sale.

Korea’s leading real estate information service app Jikbang is also engaged in housing management platform business through Movill it acquired from Kakao Pay in January. The platform offers residents convenient services such as community e-voting, authorization, and facility reservation within the community area. It also allows residents to communicate with each other.

Lotte participated as a financial investor in a private equity fund to acquire Joonggonara, a popular secondhand store.

By Park Dae-ui and Lee Eun-joo

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]