On Groupon, the social buying scene, and not being Korean

Next week will mark my three-year anniversary in Korea. With the exception of a visa run to Fukuoka, I haven’t left Korean soil since I landed at Incheon. That certainly doesn’t make me a Korean, and it certainly doesn’t guarantee a residential status. The former is seemingly impossible, and the latter is not particularly of interest.

What irks me, though, is when a relatively large international company manages to ignore a small – albeit vocal and relatively affluent – percentage of the population. Groupon Korea‘s announcement of starting up in Dae Han Min Guk surprised no one in the Korean tech world. Now that the website is launched, the mainstream population is seeing the ugly truth: we don’t care about the foreigners or speaking a second language, and we’re really going after the money. This despite having dozens of sites around the world, in dozens of languages. Considering the role of a business in a capitalist society is to make money, that’s not too surprising. As is all-too-typical for Korean websites, there are no English / Chinese / Japanese buttons, and registering with anything other than a Korean ID will get you nowhere. Were this a 100% Korean site, developed and programmed by the people still using Internet Explorer 6.0 and (shudder) ActiveX, this would not be news-worthy.

This is, of course, the same billion-dollar American company whose flagship American site is English-only. That Groupon China, Groupon Japan, etc. have only the local languages (no English or other languages available) seems to reinforce their mono-language ability. Between the Super Bowl ad featuring Tibet and the apology to Japanese customers over supposed misrepresentation, it seems only a matter of time before a cultural misunderstanding or overwhelming demand sets back the company’s ambitions in Korea.

But let’s say you’d like to register on Groupon Korea’s site – half-off coupons are always nice. The most egregious example is the first step: enter your 이름, or your name (note that the English translations are not visible on the website, but they’re provided here to understand what’s going on):

이름은 띄어쓰기 없이 입력하세요 (Please enter your name with no spaces)

Um, sure, OK – at least now, I can get my full name in:

이름을 정확하게 입력해 주세요 (Please enter the name correctly)

And how exactly would you know if my name isn’t entered correctly? Sounds awful presumptuous. Fine then. Let’s try typing my name in Korean:

이름은 띄어쓰기 없이 입력하세요 (Please enter your name with no spaces)

Geez. Oh, that’s right. Korean names don’t have spaces. Who cares about the names from the rest of the world? We’re just interested in the Korean market here.

실명을 입력해 주세요 (Please enter your real name)

That’s it, then. Apparently, my name is not real.

That’s alright, though – those Jinny Kim shoes offered at 60% off are still overpriced, and would seriously mangle my feet.

What about their competitors?

Supposedly, two of Groupon’s competitors – Coupang and Ticketmonster.co.kr – allow the use of your ARC (Alien Registration Card) ID number. Coupang’s site offers a familiar enough Korean word – 외국인 (way-gook-in, or foreigner) – to indicate that foreigners are at least allowed on their site. There is the usual hassle of when your name (as it exists on the Korean government’s computers) does not match up with your ID number, but that’s not Coupang’s fault. Unless you’re sure of your name or are willing to play 20 questions, the registration won’t proceed. I think there’s an issue with how the Korean database registers our name. It might be ‘Chris’, ‘크리스’, ‘Chris Backe’, ‘Christopher S. Backe’, or any of a hundred other permutations. I’m not even sure how to find out my name on the Korean database. There’s also little use of any foreign language – except, of course, when it serves the needs of the marketing team.

One bright spot

Ticketmonster’s registration was surprisingly painless:

성명 translates to ‘Statement’ in Google Translate, but just enter your name – your usual, everyday English name.

주민번호 is your ARC number, while 구분 just asks whether you’re Korean (국내) or a foreigner (외국인). The second page is painless, although you’ll need a Korean cell phone number (they’ll send a four-digit authentication number to it, which you’ll need to enter on this page).

The rest of the website is still in Korean – so don’t close that Google Translate window just yet. As of the original posting, this is the only site where I currently have an account.

An alternative to the whole ‘social buying’ thing

While KoreaBites.com is still in beta, this is perhaps the most promising way to get food delivered at a good price – AND get around the language barriers. You deposit money into a BitesBucks account, which is used to pay for your orders, and get around the whole ‘must have a Korean credit card’ rigmarole.

Perhaps this incarnation of these websites is simply the first – and perhaps a little public pressure is required to move their language policies forward. It’s one thing to live in a foreign country and never speak the foreign language – that’s stupid no matter what planet you’re on. If your customer is making an honest, good-will effort to understand a website written in a foreign language, your failure to make it easy only drives that customer elsewhere.

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