Of the 10,000 won spent on KakaoTalk's "Gift" payment service, 2,000 won is not a gift sent to someone else. It is "self-purchase," where users buy items for themselves.
KakaoTalk Gift, which started as a service for sending gifts to others, is expanding its scope into a general shopping platform. This is the result of Kakao cultivating self-purchase for nearly three years to broaden purchases that once clustered around birthdays and anniversaries into daily consumption.
According to Kakao on the 11th, self-purchase accounted for approximately 20% of the total transaction value of Gift in the second quarter of this year. Kakao first disclosed this figure at its recent second-quarter earnings announcement.
While Gift transaction value increased by 9% compared to the same period last year, self-purchase transaction value rose by 39%. This is more than four times the overall growth rate. The growth rate for self-purchase was 40% in the third quarter of last year and 53% in the first quarter of this year.
Self-purchase is a method where the recipient is designated as oneself to complete payment. Even without someone to gift, users can purchase items listed on Gift just like in a general online mall.
The items purchased were also different from "gifts." During March, when Kakao Shopping Festa, the biggest discount event of the first half of the year, was held, the top-selling item for self-purchase was the Dyson Airwrap Styler. The most frequently sent gift to others during the same period was a 50,000 won Baemin exchange voucher. Users buy versatile vouchers for others and taste-driven, higher-priced items for themselves.
Gifts sent to others require an "occasion" for transactions to occur. There is no clear reason to use Gift unless it is a birthday, anniversary, or holiday. In contrast, self-purchase occurs repeatedly even without an occasion. This is the reason Kakao has invested effort into self-purchase.
It began with the April 2024 self-purchase exclusive promotion "For Me Week." At the third-quarter earnings announcement in November of that year, Kakao CEO Jeong Shin-a stated, "We will strengthen our strategy to increase the share of self-purchases on Gift and expand events where gifts can be exchanged." This formalized self-purchase as a growth strategy.
Subsequently, features were added one by one. In May last year, a separate tab titled "Gift to Me" was created, and in January this year, a corner named "My Money, My Purchase" was established in the product rankings. A dedicated discount was also applied: 2,000 won off for purchases of 20,000 won or more, and 7,000 won off for purchases of 70,000 won or more.
During this period, the overall Gift service also revived. The transaction value growth rate had fallen to as low as 1% in the third quarter of last year but rose to 9% in this quarter. In May, it recorded the highest monthly transaction value ever on a monthly basis.
However, it remains to be seen whether the commerce business will continue to gain momentum solely from self-purchase. Revenue from Tokbiz Commerce, which includes Gift, was 243.2 billion won in the second quarter, up 10% year-on-year, but down 10% from the previous quarter's 270 billion won.
Kakao's next card is agentic AI. If self-purchase is a mechanism that enables purchases even when there is no one to gift, AI is a mechanism that enables purchases even without entering the shopping platform.
When users discuss delivery food on KakaoTalk, the AI reads their intent, recommends menus, and connects them to ordering and payment. The first partner is Coupang Eats. Orders are placed through Coupang Eats, while payments are made via Kakao Pay.
It is highly likely that whether the center of KakaoTalk Commerce shifts from "what to send to whom" to "what I will buy" will be confirmed in the second-half performance results.
in TECH
