Earn Points for KakaoTalk Gifts Starting Next Month... Usable for Shopping Too

Preview of the Membership Service Scheduled for Launch on October 1

Kakao will launch its paid membership service on October 1, marking the company’s first attempt to allow users to accumulate a certain portion of their KakaoTalk Gift and Talk Deal purchase amounts as shopping points, which they can then use for future purchases.

According to the IT industry on September 22, Kakao is set to integrate a shopping point accumulation program into the Kakao Membership, scheduled for launch on October 1. When users buy products—or send them as gifts to friends—via KakaoTalk Gift, a percentage of the purchase amount will be credited as points.

Kakao will launch Kakao Membership on October 1. Kakao

Points accumulated through membership purchases can then be redeemed for KakaoTalk Gift or Talk Deal transactions. Details such as the specific accumulation rates will be announced on the membership launch date.

Until now, Kakao has not operated a point accumulation service in the commerce sector. Previously, users had to pre-charge shopping points and pay for products using those points, receiving a 2% reward on the payment amount. Additionally, purchasing certain partner brands rewarded 3% in points, but only if users subscribed to the brands’ KakaoTalk channels and agreed to receive promotional messages.

However, Kakao will maintain its existing policy of categorizing points earned in the commerce sector as “shopping points,” which distinguishes them from points used in other Kakao-linked services. Currently, Kakao operates different point systems by subsidiary: shopping points (for KakaoTalk Gift and Talk Deal), and pay points (for Kakao Pay). Unlike pay points, which can be used with Kakao Pay’s online and offline partner merchants, shopping points can only be used for Kakao’s shopping services.

This is in contrast to Naver, which increases the earning rate of Naver Pay points for Naver Plus Membership subscribers, and allows these points to be used at a wide range of payment partners.

Furthermore, items such as coffee coupons, digital gifticons, and mobile gift certificates fall under the category of prepaid electronic payment methods under the Electronic Financial Transactions Act, making it difficult to accumulate points on these products. This is because these items are vulnerable to illegal cash out practices, commonly called “gift certificate arbitrage.” Other platforms likewise do not allow points to be earned from mobile gift certificates.

Meanwhile, Kakao’s first integrated membership service—Kakao Membership—will offer a variety of benefits across Kakao’s major services, including emoticons, Talk Cloud, Gift, Melon, Kakao Pay, and Kakao Pay Securities. Kakao Membership will be launched in “soft launch” format, available to a limited number of users on a first-come, first-served basis from 10 AM on October 1. The monthly subscription fee and details of the service will be revealed on the launch date.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.