Living in Korea | A Foreigner's Guide to Online Grocery Shopping with Homeplus, Emart, Market Kurly
Shopping for groceries online in Korea takes time and can be an impossible task for many foreigners. In addition to the language barrier, Korean payment systems can be a hassle to navigate, to say the least. That said, once the basics of online shopping are mastered, and with Wonderful's help, shopping for groceries online can be a convenient, if not a pleasant experience overall. Korea's biggest grocery vendors, those are Homeplus, Emart, Coupang Fresh, Market Kurly and GSShop (GsFresh) , have on-line stores that can do next day/same day grocery deliveries to your home. You may even pick a convenient time and date to have your items delivered. Having assisted hundreds of clients with grocery shopping requests, we understand the struggle very well. Here are some tips on how to simplify your online shopping experience with Wonderful's help.
The first thing you may think about when planning to shop for groceries is what the Korean names of the items are. Here is a list of the most commonly requested grocery items, translated to Korean to make your search easier.
To search for a specific item on Homeplus, you can input/copy and paste the Korean name of your item into the search box on the homepage.
The same goes for Emart.
Let's say we searched for sweet potatoes or ‘고구마’ as it is called in Korean, both Homeplus and Emart will give a set of results from different vendors. For Homeplus, be careful to check whether the items can be delivered on the next day/same day, as opposed to the regular post delivery. Homeplus is not entirely clear on this, but they do put a mark on postal delivery items as highlighted below.
Emart indicates the items that have same day/next day delivery as highlighted below.
With GS Shop, it would be easier to first select the "GS Fresh" tab to view the items that can be delivered at your preferred time.
Once on the GS Fresh page, you choose your address from the circled button (the left one) in the image below. The button to the right selects your preferred delivery time.
With sites like Coupang or Market Kurly, you are not able to choose a specific delivery time. That said, they still have overnight/early morning next-day delivery services available for their products. With Coupang, you would have to first go to the Coupang Fresh page, to check on their grocery items. (shown below)
With Market Kurly, the delivery option available, is indicated at the check out page.
Once you have confirmed your grocery shopping list, you can proceed to purchase the items. Sadly, Korean payment systems are still not compatible with most international payment systems, which might be give you issues when checking out. If you need help, feel free to send your shopping list to Wonderful, and we would be happy to place the order for you. Most online purchase requests take around 20-30 minutes to get done on average, but times can vary depending on your situation.
Regarding our pricing, we charge for the time taken working on your request by the minute, for as low as 1250 KRW per minute, depending on your preferred pricing package. There are NO processing fees when you pay us via bank wire transfer. (You will pay only the cost of the item(s)). When we charge your bank card, there is an 8.5% processing fee that goes to the payment processor for their services. We do NOT benefit from this fee. For more information regarding our pricing, please follow this link.
You can reach us on Facebook, Kakao Talk or Email. Shopping in Korea is not easy, but Wonderful can make the process easier, efficient and hassle free, saving you time.
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