Icoop

I had my co-teacher help me sign up for a website called Icoop. It is a online grocery store here in the ROK that sells organic local products and offers free home delivery.

The site is all in Korean, but they have pics of the products, and I either use a dictionary or babble fish to translate what the items are that I am buying. Although babble fish sometimes gives me some pretty weird translations. For example I wanted to know what this product was, and Babble fish told me "The mouse eye which stir-fries conga base". While that was amusing, it was not particularly helpful. One of them was "burning nose powder", another was "Seven music truths?", but usually I can at least get the gist of the product.

There are two prices for everything on the site, if you just get a normal enrollment, the price you see is what you pay, if you get a paid membership(13,000 won a month) you get 20% off. There is also a deposited of 30,000won which you get back whenever you quit the service. With a few exceptions, the prices as listed are about the same, or a little higher than the grocery stores in my town. With the 20% off all the prices are cheaper than what I have been paying.

We have been buying 5 Kilogram boxes of Asian pears, and on the website they are 13,500 won regular, I pay 11,600 with my discount, and we have been paying around 13,000+ at the store in town. My kids go through 5 kilograms of apples every 2-3 days and we have been paying 17,800 for a box (usually they have 3 kilo boxes for around 12,000), on the website they are 20,500 and I pay 16,200.

I am saving at least 1,000 won on pretty much everything I buy, and feeding 5 people it adds up. After buying 13 products it makes it worth it I figure.