Coupang fire raises fears of mounting losses for both company and merchants
Analysts say that calculating damages and reaching settlements could take several months to more than a year and that, with fire-related losses, Coupang's net loss for this year could exceed last year's profit.
Firefighters extinguish remaining hot spots at the site of the fire at a Coupang logistics center in Seo District, Incheon, on July 21.KIM JONG-HO
The fire at Coupang’s logistics center in Incheon has entered its fourth day, disrupting deliveries across the greater Seoul area and fueling concerns regarding property losses for merchants who sell their items through the platform.
The logistics center is one of Coupang’s largest distribution hubs and handles deliveries in Incheon, western Seoul and northwestern Gyeonggi.
The fire broke out on the sixth floor of logistics center No. 32 at around 6:54 a.m. on Saturday. Firefighters struggled to contain the blaze due to the facility’s complex layout and the large volume of combustible materials inside. The main flames were brought under control Monday, more than 61 hours after the fire began, but firefighters are still working to extinguish remaining hot spots.
Coupang plans to maintain deliveries by redistributing shipments to its nearby facilities in Goyang and Gyeonggi.
However, the company warned that order cancellations and delivery delays are inevitable since each fulfillment center stocks different products. Affected customers should have already received cancellation notices and Coupang Cash credits as compensation.
Anxiety among merchants is rising as the facility on fire stored a large volume of inventory under Coupang’s Rocket Growth fulfillment service, in which the company handles storage and delivery on behalf of third-party sellers.
Firefighters extinguish remaining hot spots at the site of the fire at a Coupang logistics center in Seo District, Incheon, on July 21.KIM JONG-HO
Some sellers whose inventory has been marked as out of stock or whose orders have been canceled say that they face both direct losses from destroyed inventory and secondary damage, such as lower search rankings. Many have begun compiling documentation for future compensation claims.
According to legal experts, calculating damages and reaching settlement agreements could take anywhere from several months to more than a year.
The fire is also expected to exacerbate financial pressure on Coupang. The company experienced a fire at the Deokpyeong logistics center in Icheon, Gyeonggi, in 2021, which resulted in losses of about 340 billion won ($230 million).
Industry observers expect the recent damage to far exceed that figure, given that the Incheon facility is more than twice the size of the Deokpyeong center.
Those costs follow Coupang’s 620 billion won administrative fine, handed down in the second quarter of this year following a large-scale personal data breach that occurred in November 2025. Analysts say that with the fire-related losses, Coupang’s net loss for this year could exceed last year’s profit.
Coupang’s fire prevention system is once again under scrutiny as well, despite the company expanding its fire safety organization and strengthening dedicated auditing functions after the 2021 warehouse fire.
Investigators are expected to spend considerable time determining the cause of the blaze. Restoration work and safety inspections could prolong logistics disruptions across the greater Seoul area.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
