Markets have changed shape along with the technology of each era. Marketplaces rose where people gathered, and large distribution networks emerged as cities grew. Now our market is moving rapidly into the small screen in our hands.
Online shopping transactions exceeded 272 trillion won last year, of which mobile shopping accounted for about 211 trillion won, or 77.6% of the total. Online platforms have become core market infrastructure that connects customers, products, payments and delivery, rather than mere sales channels. For small business owners, they are also an important arena of opportunity to meet new consumers beyond regional boundaries. Online platforms matter especially for the smallest operators, because they can use sales, payment and delivery foundations that they could not build on their own. A path has opened for even a small shop with good products and ideas to reach consumers nationwide.
Platforms are thus establishing themselves for small business owners not just as a new sales channel but as an important operating base for sustaining a business. Online platforms have now become difficult to separate from the day-to-day management of a small business. Yet as the influence of platforms grows, new challenges arise as well. When many consumers gather on a platform, small business owners' dependence on that platform also rises. New management burdens that were not experienced in offline markets are appearing, including commissions and advertising fees, settlement terms, and the information gap between sellers and platforms. Just as platforms have made it possible to enter a wider market, the terms on which businesses trade and grow within them have also become important. In particular, the greater the dependence on a platform, the more directly even small changes in transaction terms can affect a small business owner's operations. That is why a trading environment is needed in which the growth of platforms leads to real opportunity for small business owners.
In this respect, the recently proposed revision to the Act on the Promotion of Win-Win Cooperation Between Large Enterprises and Small and Medium Enterprises carries significant meaning. If the win-win cooperation law enacted in 2006 created an institutional foundation for the shared growth of large and smaller companies, the revision extends the scope of win-win cooperation to online platforms and the small business owners who use them. It would introduce a shared growth index for online platforms and a win-win cooperation council, raise transparency in the trading environment including commissions and settlement deadlines, and establish grounds for supporting platforms that actively pursue win-win cooperation as well as the small and medium enterprises and small business owners that use them. This does not treat platforms as mere targets of regulation. Nor does it halt the growth of platforms. Creating an environment in which small business owners can take part in the market's growth — that is the important meaning of this revision.
This is not a change for platforms or small business owners alone. For platforms, small business owners are more than the many sellers who make up the market; they are core partners who provide the products and services that draw consumers to the platform. Small business owners, in turn, can use platforms to move beyond the limits of place and time, enter a wider market and meet new customers. This is why platforms and small business owners need each other.
Platforms and small business owners resemble the relationship between a forest and its trees. A forest grows dense only when there are many healthy trees, and a good forest in turn becomes the ground on which trees can grow. The relationship between platforms and small business owners is therefore extremely subtle and complex — a relationship in which each is interlocked with the other in growing the ecosystem. In such a relationship, unfairness in which one side's gain is won at the sacrifice of the other's is not desirable. A healthy platform ecosystem benefits consumers as well. Only when diverse small business owners can compete and grow in the market can consumers encounter a wider range of products and services. In the end, win-win cooperation between platforms and small business owners is also a matter of broadening consumer choice and adding new vitality to the market.
Platforms must now show the market a more responsible face than ever. Small business owners must walk that path together with them. The technology, data and market power that platforms hold should return to small business owners as greater opportunity and a fair share of growth. At the same time, small business owners must be able to use the new market of platforms to strengthen their own competitiveness and grow.
Win-win cooperation is ultimately about building a market that grows together. The next stage of growth in the platform economy depends less on how much bigger it has become than on how much that growth is shared and cultivated together. Platforms and small business owners supporting each other's growth and building a healthy ecosystem — perhaps that is the new form of win-win cooperation we should aim for in the platform era.
