Once-Thriving 'First-Generation Luxury Platform' Feelway Faces Survival Crisis Amid 5 Consecutive Years of Deficits

Pioneer of the Online Luxury Market, What is Feelway?

Feelway is a first-generation domestic used luxury goods trading platform that opened in 2002. Since its launch, it has built high consumer trust by providing an open market environment where anyone can become a seller, and by operating a 'Luxury Knowledge' community where experts determine the authenticity of products. Based on this, it surpassed 3 million cumulative members and a record 70,000 seller members, reigning as the unrivaled leader in the online luxury trading market for a long time. However, Feelway, which once dominated the market, is recently facing a severe management crisis and stands at the crossroads of survival.

Rapid Revenue Decline and 5 Consecutive Years in the Deficit Swamp

Feelway's glory began to decline sharply starting in 2020. After recording sales of approximately 14.15 billion won and an operating profit of about 3.95 billion won in 2019, it achieved its highest sales of about 14.78 billion won in 2020, generating a solid operating profit of about 2.51 billion won. However, as the market landscape was restructured around brand-new luxury goods and competing platforms sprang up one after another, the downward trend in sales materialized in earnest from 2021. In 2021, sales decreased to approximately 13.14 billion won, resulting in an operating loss of 190 million won for the first time, and subsequently plummeted as the first digit changed every year: about 9.47 billion won in 2022, about 6.77 billion won in 2023, and about 4.84 billion won in 2024. Eventually, sales in 2025 shrank to approximately 3.51 billion won, evaporating by a staggering 76% compared to the peak in 2020. Operating profit has also recorded a minus for five consecutive years, falling into a deep deficit swamp, with -2.87 billion won in 2022, -1.86 billion won in 2023, -1.7 billion won in 2024, and -1.44 billion won in 2025.

[Source: Feelway Homepage]

Bloated Labor and Marketing Costs… Belated 'Downsizing'

The biggest problem is the structural deterioration of profitability, which occurred as cost reduction failed to keep up with the speed of the sales decline. As of 2025, Feelway's salaries amounted to approximately 1.74 billion won and advertising expenses to about 1.56 billion won, meaning these two items alone (about 3.3 billion won) are eating up most of the total sales, which are at a scale of 3.51 billion won. Of course, Feelway has not been sitting idle. The company belatedly tightened its belt by drastically cutting advertising expenses, which were about 4.6 billion won in 2021, to about 1.56 billion won in 2025, and reducing labor costs from about 2.84 billion won to around 1.74 billion won (based on salary). Although it is currently fiercely pursuing 'downsizing' to reduce the business scale itself, it is still unable to escape the deficit because the drop in sales is much steeper than the scale of the reduction.

Cafe24's Acquisition Failure and the Fading 'Golden Timing' for Sale

Amid the management difficulties, a legal dispute with a competitor also broke out. Feelway filed a civil and criminal lawsuit worth around 5 billion won, alleging that the competing platform 'BALAAN' illegally crawled its product data (product photos, numbers, product names, etc.) and used it commercially. It is a situation of internal and external troubles where even conflicts between platforms are intensifying over a shrinking pie.

Feelway raised expectations when it was sold to Cafe24 for about 29 billion won (50% stake) in 2018, but it fell into a slump without generating the anticipated synergy. Since then, Cafe24 and financial investors (FI) have pushed for the resale of Feelway through a lead manager, but they have experienced long-term difficulties in finding a buyer as the brand image aged and they failed to target consumer needs. The founder, CEO Kim Sung-jin, returned to management, conducted a paid-in capital increase, and converted about 10 billion won in debt into equity, barely escaping the state of capital impairment. However, this is merely a temporary improvement in the financial structure, and it will be difficult to guarantee long-term survival if they cannot fundamentally rebound the sales, which have been slashed to a quarter of their previous size.

Industry-Wide Chain Crisis, Feelway Stands on the Edge of a Cliff

To make matters worse, a harsh cold snap has struck the entire e-commerce industry. In a severe market environment where even platforms in the same industry are having their survival threatened—such as the bankruptcy of BALAAN, the rehabilitation process of Newnex (Brandi), and the liquidity crisis of JENTE—the reality is that it is difficult to find a company willing to readily acquire Feelway, whose performance has been in negative growth for five years. As a result, pessimistic analyses are gaining strength that the 'golden timing' for a sale, which could have allowed Feelway to find a new owner and seek a rebound, has already passed.