Naver’s new AI-powered shopping app, Naver Plus Store, enhances user experience with personalized recommendations and drives significant sales growth for sellers through innovative customer engagement strategies.
Naver’s newly launched artificial intelligence-powered shopping app, Naver Plus Store, has made a successful debut since its release on March 12. The South Korean tech giant reported on March 24 that the app, which employs AI-driven personalized recommendations, has improved the connection between brands and their loyal customers while enhancing the overall user shopping experience.
By leveraging Naver’s proprietary HyperCLOVA X AI technology alongside personalized recommendation algorithms, the Naver Plus Store app analyzes user preferences and shopping contexts to offer customized product suggestions and promotions. This tailored approach includes providing individualized coupons, special benefits for loyal customers, and notification alerts for exclusive deals, all designed to boost engagement between sellers and repeat buyers.
Heavy shoppers who actively explore the app benefit from even more precise recommendations. Data indicates that transactions generated through AI recommendations and exploration features in Naver Plus Store are 20 percentage points higher than those in Naver’s standard app. This reflects the company’s strategy to complement its traditional search-based shopping platform with a dedicated app aimed at exploratory and recommendation-driven shopping, which is expected to create stronger synergy and expand user experiences.
Sellers on the platform are actively utilizing Naver Plus Store for customer retention and marketing. Currently, about 30% of brand stores provide first-purchase coupons, while 20% offer special deals for repeat customers. Notably, subscriptions to ‘Lounge Membership’—a membership service run independently by each brand store to communicate with and nurture loyal customers—have surged by 382% compared to the same time last year, following the app’s launch in March.
This increase in targeted marketing is correlating with significant sales growth for sellers. Brands that have implemented customer relationship management (CRM) tools such as exclusive coupons and Lounge Membership programs saw their average transaction amount rise by 33% year-over-year in March. For instance, the food and beverage brand Binggrae launched an exclusive new product, “Royal Choco,” available only to Lounge Membership subscribers concurrent with the app launch, augmenting transactions twofold in the two weeks after compared to before the app’s release.
Similarly, Daejoo Pet Food, primarily focused on business-to-business feed manufacturing, reported a remarkable 31-fold increase in transaction amounts from the third to the fourth week of March compared to the previous year. The company attributed this to active participation in promotions and a strategic CRM marketing campaign aimed at converting new customers into repeat buyers through targeted coupon offers. A representative from Daejoo Pet Food remarked, “The new shopping app broadened our contact points with target customers interested in our pet products, naturally creating opportunities to introduce new products. Because pet food is a product with repeat purchases, we strategically issued marketing coupons by customer type to convert new customers into repeat customers, and the actual sales efficiency was very high.”
Naver Delivery, the company’s rebranded delivery service integrated with Naver Plus Store, is also experiencing a surge in transaction volumes, nearly doubling in March year-over-year as users become more accustomed to the platform. To further support sellers in enhancing delivery competitiveness, Naver announced an upcoming promotion starting May 1 that will cap delivery solution fees charged per product order at a maximum of 5,000 won.
Naver CEO Choi Soo-yeon commented on the app’s early success, stating, “With the launch of a separate shopping app, both users and sellers are experiencing and utilizing AI commerce in various ways, adapting to the new paradigm of e-commerce. Initial service usability and growth exceed our internal targets and are proceeding smoothly. We will continue to strengthen related investments to build an ecosystem where sellers and users can grow together by enhancing more advanced technology and service capabilities.”
The launch and early performance of Naver Plus Store illustrate the growing role of artificial intelligence in reshaping e-commerce by delivering personalized shopping experiences and enabling more effective seller-to-customer engagement in the South Korean market.
Source: Noah Wire Services
