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Customer criticizes Coupang's wasteful packaging of chocolate delivery order

Published: 07 Jan. 2026, 15:57

A snack purchased from Coupang, with each box containing just one chocolate bar. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

A customer who ordered a bundle of chocolate snacks from Coupang found 15 chocolate bars packed in 15 separate boxes, sparking a backlash against the e-commerce company over wasteful packaging and inefficient logistics.

A co-worker of the customer shared a post on social media on Monday with the caption, “Coupang, apologize to the planet,” alongside a photo showing multiple Coupang-branded cardboard boxes stacked inside a room. Each medium-sized box held just one 60-gram (0.1-pound) chocolate bar.

The post quickly went viral, surpassing 240,000 views in a single day.

“A colleague at work ordered the chocolates as snacks for employees,” the co-worker said. “It was frustrating and absurd to open each box one by one.”

When others questioned whether the buyer had mistakenly ordered 15 individual items, the user clarified that the order was for a 15-piece bundle and posted a screen capture of the purchase as proof.

The purchase record for the chocolates on Coupang shows as a single order. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

Online commenters criticized the packaging as excessive and poorly thought out.

Some responded with humor, joking that “you buy a box and get chocolate inside” or calling it “the most inefficient bundle ever.”

Others expressed concern about the environmental impact.

“This is just unnecessary waste,” one commenter wrote. “Coupang needs to fix its bundling and shipping system.”

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.
BY SHIN HYE-YEON [[email protected]]