Goodwater Capital’s March 10, 2021 analysis said Coupang’s 2017 South Korean customer cohort spent 346% as much in 2020 as that cohort had spent in 2017, compared with 278% for Amazon’s 2017 U.S. cohort over the same years. That cohort-spending comparison is the basis for Goodwater’s “out-Amazoning” characterization—not proof that Coupang beat Amazon on every measure or does so today.
What Goodwater meant by “out-Amazoning”
Goodwater Capital published Understanding Coupang: Setting a New Bar for E-commerce on March 10, 2021. The firm said it compared Coupang’s S-1 filing with its proprietary consumer research. Its headline argument combined a customer-spending retention comparison with a broader case that Coupang had built a compelling customer proposition in South Korea.
Goodwater defined dollar retention as the later-year spending of a customer cohort compared with that cohort’s spending in its initial year. On that stated basis, it reported the following figures for the 2017 cohorts:
| Company and cohort | Reported spending in 2020 as a share of 2017 spending | Geography |
|---|---|---|
| Coupang, 2017 cohort | 346% — Goodwater Capital, 2021 | South Korea |
| Amazon, 2017 cohort | 278% — Goodwater Capital, 2021 | United States |
These are spending-retention figures, not a comparison of revenue, order volume, active users, profit, or market share. The companies’ cohorts also represent different national markets. Goodwater further said Coupang’s 2016 and 2017 cohorts exceeded Walmart, Etsy, and Alibaba on subsequent-year dollar retention; those comparisons, too, are Goodwater’s reported analysis, not an independent audit or controlled experiment.
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The report described the result this way: “Customers are coming back and spending at a rate that easily exceeds those platforms and closely matches the behavior on Amazon.” The statement is Goodwater’s own characterization, quoted in Catherine Shu’s contemporaneous TechCrunch report. It should be read as the firm’s interpretation of the measures it examined, rather than a timeless ranking.
Why Goodwater thought Coupang’s proposition worked
Goodwater’s thesis was that Coupang adapted a customer-focused e-commerce model to South Korean conditions. It linked repeat spending to convenience, customer experience, price, and logistics investment. A customer who can find products, receive them quickly, and return to the service may spend more over time; however, retention figures alone do not establish which factor caused the spending pattern.
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Integrated fulfillment and fast delivery
Coupang’s logistics network was central to the argument. Goodwater pointed to services such as Rocket Delivery and Dawn Delivery, supported by an integrated fulfillment and delivery operation. TechCrunch’s March 10, 2021 coverage described same-day delivery for selected grocery items, Dawn Delivery for eligible orders placed by midnight, and Rocket Fresh as a fresh-grocery service.
TechCrunch reported these historical figures, attributing them to Goodwater’s 2021 analysis: 100 fulfillment and logistics centers in 30 cities, 15,000 delivery drivers, and about 70% of South Korea’s population within seven miles of a Coupang logistics center. They describe the network as reported in 2021, not Coupang’s current footprint.
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A market shaped by local geography
Goodwater’s explanation depended on South Korea’s density, connectivity, concentrated inhabitable areas, consumer expectations, and local logistics. Eric Kim, Goodwater Capital co-founder, told TechCrunch in 2021: “You have 50 million+ people in the landmass the size of the state of Indiana, but when you look specifically at just inhabitable land, it’s really the size of Rhode Island, about 2,700 square kilometers.” That is Kim’s explanation as reported at the time, not an independently verified geographic statistic here.
Dense settlement can make short delivery routes and rapid service more feasible than they would be across a larger, more dispersed territory. The comparison therefore does not automatically show that the same service model—or its economics—would work equally well in the United States or another less-dense market.
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The proposed scale flywheel
Goodwater’s model can be understood as a potential reinforcing loop:
- A convenient customer experience may attract shoppers and encourage repeat use.
- More customer activity may make the platform more attractive to merchants and suppliers.
- Greater scale may support operating efficiencies and a broader offering.
- Those efficiencies and offerings could help fund better service or lower prices, which may attract more customers.
This is an explanation of how the model could work, not evidence that every step always follows. Scale does not by itself guarantee profits: fulfillment, delivery, technology, and service investments also carry costs.
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What Goodwater identified as growth opportunities in 2021
TechCrunch reported that Eric Kim saw Coupang’s Rocket Fresh grocery delivery and Coupang Eats meal delivery as opportunities to use the company’s logistics capabilities. These were prospects identified in a 2021 discussion, not evidence of either service’s current performance or present strategic priority.
Kim also described the competitive challenge as requiring “a competitor [to] figure out a way to invest billions into logistical and technical infrastructure to try to compete with Coupang.” That is his assessment, quoted by TechCrunch on March 10, 2021; it is not a verified estimate of what any specific competitor would need to spend.
What the comparison can—and cannot—tell you
The 346% and 278% figures show how Goodwater said spending by two specific customer cohorts changed between 2017 and 2020. They do not establish that Coupang currently leads Amazon in customer retention, overall customer experience, profitability, or any other company-wide measure. A current comparison would require matched definitions, dates, geographies, cohort methods, service availability, and operating costs—evidence not provided by this 2021 analysis.
For a personal-finance reader evaluating the claim, the key distinction is between a compelling customer-use metric and a complete assessment of a business. Repeat spending can be strategically valuable, but it does not reveal by itself how much it cost to acquire or serve those customers, whether the spending was profitable, or whether the result persists. Goodwater’s analysis supports a specific historical comparison and a thesis about Coupang’s customer proposition; it should not be treated as a current, all-purpose scorecard against Amazon.
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