Korean Consumer Behavior Online (2026 Data)

Korean consumers shop mostly on their phones, expect next-day or even dawn delivery, pay by card and easy-pay apps rather than cash, and compare prices and read reviews before they buy. About 78% of 2025 online shopping spend was on mobile, 98.8% of people own a smartphone, and cash covers only 17.4% of personal spending. Discovery happens largely on Naver and KakaoTalk rather than Google.

This page puts numbers on each of those habits, says where each number comes from, and separates official statistics from private surveys. It closes with what the habits mean for a foreign brand's Korean website or app.

Korean online shoppers at a glance

Official figures come from government statistics or the central bank. Secondary figures come from private surveys and measurement firms. We name them in the text because their samples and methods are less transparent.

Do Koreans prefer to shop on mobile?

Yes, by a wide margin. Of the KRW 272 trillion Koreans spent with online stores in 2025, KRW 211.1 trillion went through mobile devices. That is a share of about 78%, up from 76.5% in 2024 (Statistics Korea, preliminary; the share is our calculation from its table).

Device ownership explains part of it. The government's 2025 Internet Usage Survey found that 98.8% of people own a smartphone. The same survey reports an internet shopping usage rate of 78.6%, unchanged from 2024 and up from 75.0% in 2023. The published summary table does not define the base population for this item. Read it as a rate among Korean internet users rather than among all residents, and do not apply it to particular age groups: the summary release has no age breakdown.

For a brand, "mobile first" in Korea is a description of the audience, not a design preference. Most of your Korean visitors will reach you on a phone, often from a link inside KakaoTalk or the Naver app.

How fast do Korean shoppers expect delivery?

Fast. Coupang sets the benchmark. Its annual report describes free next-day Rocket Delivery "for orders placed anytime of the day, even seconds before midnight", and, for members, dawn delivery by 7 a.m. on certain products ordered before midnight. Coupang reported 24.6 million active customers in the fourth quarter of 2025, so a large share of Korean shoppers use that service as their reference point.

Dawn delivery has become a habit, not a novelty. In a survey of 1,000 Korean consumers carried out for consumer organisations in September and October 2025, 64.1% said losing dawn delivery would be inconvenient, and 98.9% of those who had used it said they would keep using it (as reported by The Financial News). This is a single private survey, but it points the same way as the retailer's promises.

A foreign brand does not have to match next-day delivery, but it does have to be clear. Shoppers used to a delivery date at checkout will look for one. If you ship from abroad, say how many days it takes and who pays duties before the customer reaches the payment step.

How do Koreans pay, and do they still use cash?

Card and easy-pay dominate; cash is shrinking but still wanted.

The card figures without and with the physical card cover spending at domestic merchants tracked by the Bank of Korea. Paying through a phone, in a shop or online, now exceeds paying with a plastic card.

The cash survey adds a nuance worth knowing. Koreans use little cash, yet more of them oppose a cashless society than support it. Online, that matters less: what Korean shoppers expect at checkout is their own card or easy-pay wallet, confirmed with a PIN or fingerprint, not a long card form in English. Korean payment gateways also offer bank transfer and virtual-account payment for shoppers who prefer not to use a card.

Do Korean shoppers compare prices and read reviews?

Survey data says yes, more than shoppers elsewhere. In a 2026 survey by the advertising company Criteo of about 1,000 Korean respondents, part of an eight-country study of 6,800 people:

Criteo also reported that verified buyer reviews and ratings ranked first among the factors Korean respondents weigh when AI tools help them shop. Treat these as one vendor's survey, reported by the Korean tech outlet Tech42, not as national statistics.

For a store, the practical point is that Korean shoppers will look for reviews in Korean and will check your price against other sellers. Product pages need a reviews section that works on mobile, and prices should be shown in won, including shipping.

Where do Koreans search and talk?

On Korean platforms. Naver handled 64.28% of web searches in Korea in the first half of 2026 and Google 28.37%, according to the measurement firm InternetTrend. Other firms measure differently and some show Google higher, so treat Naver as the leading search engine rather than relying on the exact share. Either way, a site that only registers with Google Search Console is invisible to a large part of Korean search.

For messaging, KakaoTalk is close to universal. In the government's 2025 survey, 98% of internet users used a messaging app, and 98% of those used KakaoTalk. Korean businesses use KakaoTalk Channels for customer chat and KakaoTalk business messages for order and booking notices.

We cover the platform side in more depth in Korea internet usage and platforms, and the search side in Naver SEO for foreign websites.

Does a Korean-language website matter?

There is no Korean-only study we can cite with confidence, so here is the best global evidence, clearly labelled as global. In a 2020 survey of 8,709 online shoppers in 29 countries by CSA Research, 76% preferred to buy products with information in their own language, 40% said they never buy from websites in other languages, and 73% wanted reviews in their own language at least.

Those figures are not specific to Korea and are six years old. They are consistent with what the Korean data shows: shoppers who start from Korean search and Korean messaging, read Korean reviews and pay with Korean wallets are being asked to switch language at the point of purchase when the store is English-only. A Korean site also needs Korean customer contact, ideally a KakaoTalk Channel, so that questions can be answered in Korean.

Whether you need a full Korean site or a smaller Korean presence depends on how you sell. Do you need a Korean website? walks through that decision.

What this means if you're launching in Korea

A checklist for a foreign brand's Korean site or app, drawn from the habits above:

1. Mobile first, tested where Koreans browse. Build the Korean pages for phones and test them inside the KakaoTalk and Naver in-app browsers, including the payment window and address search.
2. Korean payments at checkout. Local cards and easy-pay wallets through a Korean payment gateway. See Korean payment gateway integration, Toss Payments integration and, if you already use a global processor, Does Stripe work in South Korea?.
3. Delivery dates before payment. Show the expected delivery date or number of days, and for overseas shipping, duties and returns.
4. Reviews and won prices. A mobile-friendly reviews section in Korean and prices in won including shipping.
5. KakaoTalk for contact and notices. A KakaoTalk Channel for questions, and order or booking notices by KakaoTalk business message. See KakaoTalk Channel and AlimTalk and, for sign-up, Kakao and Naver login.
6. Naver Search Advisor registration. Register and submit a sitemap so Naver can find the Korean pages.
7. Korean-language UX, not just translated text. Korean address search, name and phone formats, Korean fonts and line breaks. Our Korean website localization checklist and Korean web design guide cover the details.

For the size of the market behind these habits, see Korea ecommerce market size.

Frequently asked questions

Do Koreans prefer to shop on mobile?

Yes. About 78% of Korea's 2025 online shopping spend, KRW 211.1 trillion of KRW 272 trillion, was made on mobile devices, according to Statistics Korea. Smartphone ownership was 98.8% in the government's 2025 survey.

How fast do Korean shoppers expect delivery?

Very fast. Coupang, with 24.6 million active customers, offers free next-day delivery on orders placed up to midnight and, for members, dawn delivery by 7 a.m. on certain products. In a 2025 survey of 1,000 consumers, 64% said losing dawn delivery would be inconvenient. Foreign sellers should at least show a clear delivery date before payment.

Do Koreans still use cash?

Less and less. Cash covered 17.4% of personal monthly spending in 2025, down from 21.6% in 2021, according to the Bank of Korea. Even so, 45.8% of respondents opposed a cashless society. Online, cards and easy-pay wallets are the norm.

Do Koreans use Google?

Yes, but Naver leads. InternetTrend measured Naver at 64.28% of web searches in the first half of 2026 and Google at 28.37%. Measurements vary by firm, so plan for both: Google Search Console and Naver Search Advisor.

Do I need a Korean-language website to sell in Korea?

If you want Korean shoppers to buy directly from you, a Korean-language site with Korean payments and contact is usually needed. Global surveys show most shoppers prefer to buy in their own language. A smaller Korean presence can work for some business-to-business sales.

Sources

All checked October 2026. Official statistics are listed first, then private surveys and measurements.

• Statistics Korea (Ministry of Data and Statistics), Online Shopping Trends, December and annual 2025, 2 February 2026 (preliminary)
• Ministry of Science and ICT and NIA, 2025 Internet Usage Survey results, 31 March 2026
• Bank of Korea, Electronic payment services in 2025, 20 March 2026, release document via the KDI Economic Information and Education Center
• Bank of Korea, Domestic payment and settlement trends in 2025, 30 March 2026, release document via the KDI Economic Information and Education Center
• Bank of Korea, 2025 survey on cash usage by economic agents, December 2025, release document via the KDI Economic Information and Education Center
• Coupang, Inc., Form 10-K for fiscal year 2025, filed with the US SEC
• Secondary: consumer organisations' survey on dawn delivery, as reported by The Financial News, 30 October 2025
• Secondary: Criteo consumer survey, as reported by Tech42, 26 March 2026
• Secondary: InternetTrend search engine share, H1 2026, as reported by Digital Daily, 12 July 2026
• Secondary: CSA Research, Can't Read, Won't Buy – B2C, 2020

Selling to Korean consumers from abroad? See the Korea market entry overview or send us your project details. We help with the Korean-side setup for payments, KakaoTalk and Naver, and work with you in English.