Customers throng TMON, WeMakePrice for refunds as liquidity woes persist

Thousands of customers have swarmed the headquarters of TMON and WeMakePrice, two local affiliates of Singapore-based e-commerce platform Qoo10 Group, to seek refunds, according to company officials on Friday, as payment delays by the two online marketplaces sparked liquidity woes among sellers.

TMON and WeMakePrice have failed to pay money earned by sellers in May, after Qoo10 Group was reportedly tipped into a tight cash situation over aggressive merger deals. Sellers on the online marketplaces have expressed frustration over payment delays.

As of 8 a.m. on Friday, WeMakePrice had refunded some 2,000 customers.

Responding to consumer outrage, TMON also began refunding customers early Friday, company officials said.

More than 2,000 customers thronged the headquarters of TMON, which had originally refused to give refunds.

Kwon Do-wan, a senior executive at TMON, said the company raised some 4 billion won (US$2.88 million) from its reserve fund to refund customers.

On Thursday, the financial and antitrust regulators launched joint on-site inspections into the two e-commerce platforms TMON and WeMakePrice over their delays in payments to sellers.

Their payment delays sparked concerns about industrywide impacts and potential damage to customers, and most of their 60,000 sellers were small merchants and the self-employed relatively vulnerable to such risks.

Lee Se-hoon, vice governor of the Financial Supervisory Service, told reporters that the value of payment delays by TMON and WeMakePrice was between 160 billion won and 170 billion won.