Naver is an online web application that uses its search engine, unlike many other web applications. Naver is operated under the guides and ethics of the Naver Corporation and was for the first time, created in South Korea in June 1999. It was the very first Korean website that had its in-built search engine. Naver over time has expanded from being just an online application that has its search engine to having other different platforms that carry out a lot of activities to her customers and clients. Naver now has a Smart store where people can buy and sell, and do all sorts of e-commerce transactions, also Naver expanded to have Cafés across the internet, Messaging applications, email applications, to mention just a few. It is very important to know that as much as Naver products belong to Korea, you can use Naver from a mobile device or desktop including a laptop, within or outside Korea. Naver is not meant to be used only within Korea. You can create a Naver account from any location and use Naver.
Naver applications are top notch and are used by a wide range of the population especially in South Korea, whether chatting, surfing the internet, sending emails, including shopping, you will find a good number of people using Naver products to do this. Hence, Naver software applications and services have covered a wide range of the Korean Market. Naver gives you all you need just at a goal. Across entire Korea, including South Korea, it was observed that about 70% of the population uses Naver as their default search engine when compared to other search engines. Naver over time has expanded its services by launching a webcomic service in the year 2004, known as ‘Webtoon’, also in the same regard, a personal blog was launched by Naver in 2005. Naver has expanded so much that it has added a lot of new services and features which include basic e-mail, news, and what is called a Q/A platform Knowledge iN, which was the first of its kind, and, more importantly, the service of our interest which is Naver Smart Store was also launched.
Naver Smart Store
Photo Credits: Les nabis table
The famous Naver Smart store which is an online store was launched by The Naver Corporation as a subsidiary of the brand, and over time, the smart store has made waves in the Electronic Commerce industry since its inception and has continued to do so. Naver Smart store online shop is a platform where business owners can promote and sell their products to their customers. The store also helps them maintain a good customer relationship," The store provides goods and services of different kinds to her customers, buyers can find whatever they need on this platform while sellers get the opportunity to sell their products. You can also get different services from Naver smart store. As the Naver Smart Store rapidly took over the online market in Korea, LINE and Naver have decided to expand the Naver smart Store to Japan, this time the store was named MySmartStore. It was noted that roughly over 470,000 merchants are operating on Naver smart Store platform.
It is very important to note that Naver Co-operation produces their applications in the Korean Language, this means that Naver Café, Naver Webtoon, Naver Blog, and others, including Naver Smart Store were all designed using the Korean Language. Hence for one to be able to buy products from this platform, the person must either have a good idea of the Korean Language or device another means to be able to purchase these items from the store.
How to Use Naver Smart Store
Photo Credits: Naver
As one who is planning to relocate to Korea or as a foreigner living in Korea, it is very important to learn the Korea Language to be able to transact effectively. In a situation where one does not understand the language, you can still use the Naver Smart Store to transact, to do this you must use a browser, Google Chrome comes highly recommended but you can also choose to use other browsers like Safari, Firefox, Microsoft Edge, etc., then login into the Naver Smart Store site and use Google Translator. To be able to use google translator or to turn it on, do the following:
1. Open your browser
2. Enter Naver smart store URL.
3. The page will load and open up the application
4. On the top right of your mobile device (if you are using a large screen), you will see three icons, navigate through them with your mouse, in Google chrome, the first icon is always the ‘Translate Icon’ click on it and your page will be translated to the English language.
5. Some web browsers will require you to right-click on the page that appears in the Korean language and choose the translation to English option.
6. On a small screen, click on the menu tab that appears, scroll down and select the English Language as an option.
This way, all the content of the pages will be translated by google translator for easy transaction. The amazing thing is that you don’t get to choose only the English language as a translation option, there are other languages that the page can be translated to all depending on what suits you best. So while relocating to Korea, you do not need to be afraid of not being able to surf the internet to get news from Korean websites that were built using the Korean language, you can always use the google translator to translate the pages for easy communication.
Naver Translator
Photo Credits: Papago
Another way you can easily communicate with Naver applications (not just smart store in this situation), is by using the Naver translator. The Translator designed by Naver is called the Naver Papago, it is a multilingual machine translation cloud service provided by the Naver Corporation. Naver Papago was designed to use a neural machine to learn from its mistakes and understand what context of translations the user requires. This is one of the wonders of the Naver Corporation. Knowing that most of the Naver products are designed in Korean Language, Naver Corporation saw the need to develop a translation application to make things easier for their clients who are non-Korean. You can as well use the Papago application to translate the Naver Smart Store when making transactions.
In a situation where you do not wish to use any of the above-provided solutions, one can as well ask friends, families, or neighbors around to help them with the translation.
How do I use Naver Smart Store?
Photo Credits: Naver
Now you have known how to translate the Korean Language on Naver smart store web application to the English language, it is now very important that you know how to use the platform for a different transaction.
To buy from Naver, get to the shopping page with the official URL via your browser, you will see all available categories on the left side of the page. You will see different categories of available goods such as Fashion, (Male and Female Wears, innerwear, children’s wear, etc.), Electronics, Skincare section, Home equipment, books, babies section including food section. Slightly above the page, you will see the Department Store, Outlet, beauty, and all others, click on the category that you wish you buy falls in, example if you wish to buy some clothing on the platform you should select fashion category.
When this is done, you can now search for the product(s) you want to buy, you will see a wide number of vendors who sell the same products, you can compare prices from different stores to see which one gives the best prices and quality too. Naver smart store allows you to buy from any vendor of your choice. Also when choosing a vendor, some important things to consider include reviews and ratings from other customers who have already used the vendor. You should also check for the vendor that has the least shipping fee or with the least local delivery cost. The cost for domestic ranges from 2,500 KRW to 3,000 KRW.
When you have finally decided on the products to buy and the store to buy from, you can now add them to your cart, then proceed to checkout and pay for the goods. While placing your order on the platform, you will be requested to put your details such as name, delivery location, email address, and phone number, this is to create an account for you on the platform and also easy delivery of your products to you. When placing orders from the section, you can buy anything sealed in a package. However, perishables are not allowed to be shipped overseas. Snacks, drinks, processed food, vitamins are allowed.
To be able to use Naver Smart Store, it is very paramount that you understand the Korean Language to a reasonable extent to enable you effectively navigate through the platform that is designed in the Korean Language, nevertheless, not knowing the Korean language is not a barrier to the effective transaction on the Naver platform. There are a few ways this can be solved as shown above. More importantly, you can buy from Naver stores using the KoreaBuyandShip.
The platform helps you with online shopping in Korea. It also assists with package forwarding service. All you have to do is decide on what to buy and the store to buy from as explained above, then submit the details of the transaction to KoreaBuyandShip, make payment and they will help you with the final purchase of the items and the shipping. Due to some restrictions, Naver does not offer global shipping of products, but with the intervention of KoreaBuyandShip, worldwide shipping becomes very easy.
