Platform Crises Are Contagious: A 4-Week Tmon-WeMakePrice Response Record

In July 2024, Tmon and WeMakePrice stopped making settlement payments.

Initially it looked like a simple liquidity issue. Within days, the situation transformed. Hundreds of billions of won in unpaid obligations surfaced; sellers found themselves unable to issue refunds; consumers queued in front of offline stores unable to get their money back. "Can we trust e-commerce platforms?" became a societal question.

Ohouse is an e-commerce platform. We sell interior products, not the same category — but in consumers' eyes, the same category.

Crisis Spreads Even When You Didn't Cause It

PR's most dangerous crisis is "anxiety spreading to us when we've done nothing wrong." Ohouse had an entirely different structure from Tmon-WeMakePrice: high direct-sale ratio, different settlement system. The facts were clear.

But fighting on facts alone sometimes loses. Anxiety spreads faster than facts. Four separate actors were moving at four different speeds: journalists' perception, political movements, sellers' anxiety, consumer community sentiment.

Four-Scenario Design

We analyzed the situation immediately after the crisis broke and divided the risks we might face into four axes.

Journalists: There was real possibility of reporters expanding coverage to target all e-commerce platforms. We needed to build our message before they started asking "is Ohouse okay?"

Politics: Regulatory tightening on e-commerce could accelerate using this incident. National Assembly audit season was approaching. We needed to watch policy direction and respond actively if necessary.

Sellers: Our partner businesses would be anxious. Clear communication about our settlement structure and safety was required. Silence makes anxiety grow.

Consumer community: If "isn't Ohouse also dangerous?" started circulating in online communities, it would become uncontrollable. Early suppression was critical.

Building the TF and Writing the Script

We assembled a risk task force: legal, CS, and communications — three functions, different roles.

Legal laid out the structural differences between Tmon-WeMakePrice and Ohouse precisely: settlement method, escrow structure, liquidity risk. This was the factual foundation for everything we'd say to journalists.

CS tracked consumer inquiry patterns in real time. "Aren't you going to be like Tmon-WeMakePrice?" was actually coming in. We built a standard response manual quickly.

Communications designed scenario-by-scenario messaging: responses for journalists, notices for sellers, language for consumer channels. Each required different tone and intensity.

Making "Ohouse is Safe" Into News

Simply saying "we're fine" is hollow. For it to become news, there needed to be evidence and correct timing.

The approach we chose: pre-briefing. We contacted key economics and IT journalists proactively to explain the structure. Not asking for coverage — sharing background "so you can report accurately if there are inquiries." As a journalist myself, I knew exactly how this works. Journalists trust companies that prepare context in advance over companies that scramble for a statement after a story breaks.

About four weeks. No negative Ohouse coverage appeared in press. No seller attrition. Anxiety in consumer communities was suppressed early.

"Ohouse is a safe platform" took root in both press and market.

The One Thing Journalist-Background PR Does Differently

What I felt most strongly in this experience was the importance of "reading the board."

Covering news for twelve years, I absorbed how issues spread, how journalists approach their angles, when politicians jump on which issues. Working as a PR professional, the moment where that experience applied most directly was Tmon-WeMakePrice.

Crisis management is ultimately an information war. Seeing how things will develop before others do, and moving first. Blocking the paths through which crisis spreads in advance. And delivering facts through the right channels at the right time.

Anxiety grows in information vacuums. Filling those vacuums without gaps is the core of crisis management.