中EN
Back to the archive

The encyclopedia · Strategy & Leadership · Operational decision · 2020-2025

Baemin built its own delivery rails instead of renting a platform's

Baemin named its in-house logistics network 'B-Link', letting its food-delivery riders carry a grocery arm that turned EBITDA-positive by 2024.

Woowa Brothers (Baemin) · Delivery Hero

the move

Baemin's core food-delivery network has rides active mainly at lunch and dinner peaks, leaving capacity idle between them. Quick commerce needs exactly that idle time, so the question was how to carry groceries on the same rails.

The company consolidated its grocery supply chain: its B-Mart arm's ordering, supplier and supply-chain (SCM) logistics were unified under the name 'B-Link Logisportal', and B-Mart city distribution centres grew past 70. The system now runs the whole quick-commerce loop on the riding network built for food.

Using that network as one asset shifted the economics. Revenue from B-Mart and other quick-commerce goods climbed from 218.7 billion won in 2020 to 756.8 billion won in 2024, and the business turned EBITDA-positive that same year — a threshold many rival quick-commerce operators had not crossed.

why it works

  • The food fleet and city hubs already exist, so groceries add marginal cost instead of full infrastructure cost.
  • Idle rider hours between meal peaks become productive, raising the return on a fixed workforce.
  • A single logistics and SCM stack keeps B-Mart's ordering, pricing and restock decisions coherent.
  • A dedicated logistics brand and trademark make it harder for rivals to copy the internal structure.
the payoffRun groceries on the food-delivery gridclever

what transfers

A fast delivery promise is a network asset, not a feature. Reuse the idle capacity in your existing grid to open a second category instead of building a separate one from scratch.

what came after

Baemin kept extending the model, including expanding its own-delivery share and folding grocery discounts into its paid 'Baemin Club' membership. Delivery Hero later reported Baemin pushing self-delivery to around 70% of orders. The grocery arm became the group's growth engine beyond food delivery.

references

spotted an error? The archive wants to know.

same kind of clever

2021-2023 · Engineering & Operations

Coupang moved a mini warehouse to the farm so produce ships in hours

Put the packing station at the farm, not the city
2013 · Strategy & Leadership

Seoul designed night bus routes from 3 billion phone records

Used phone records as a census of the night: mapped late-night presence by cell, connected the peaks with routes, and let observed demand justify expansion.
2004 · Strategy & Leadership

Seoul stopped paying buses per passenger and the race for fares vanished

Pooled all fare revenue and paid operators per service-kilometre run to standard, not per passenger, so the race for fares had no prize and compliance became the income.