Naver released a report analysing the past 10 years of Smartstore and said its seller support system has expanded from digital transformation (DX) to artificial intelligence transformation (AX).

Naver published on Tuesday the "D-Commerce Report 2026: Smartstore 10-Year Evolution Path Report", jointly researched by a team led by Seoul National University professor Yoo Byung-joon (유병준) and a team led by Yonsei University professor Choi Bo-reum (최보름).

The report focused on sellers facing different difficulties at each stage of business growth and analysed how Naver has expanded its support infrastructure.

At the early stage, financial support such as low fees and fast settlement was central. Naver supported the opening of free Smartstores in 2018 and introduced a fast settlement service in 2020.

During the growth phase, it expanded the scope to content, data and logistics to support customer touchpoints and order fulfilment. Shopping Live was introduced in 2020, a logistics solution in 2022 and a commerce solution in 2023.

As the e-commerce market matured and the use of AI expanded, the support approach changed again. Naver launched Naver Plus Store in 2024, applying personalisation technology and AI recommendations, and it is also advancing its logistics infrastructure and N Delivery.

The support factors that sellers considered important also differed by growth stage. For entry-stage and growth-stage sellers, 50.6 percent and 53.2 percent, respectively, cited "financial support" as the reason they primarily operate Smartstore.

In contrast, mature-stage sellers viewed "business support" such as marketing exposure and expanding sales channels as most important, at 48.3 percent. The share choosing financial support was 40.0 percent.

The report analysed that even in the AX era, such growth infrastructure is being used to expand sellers' businesses. It found that sellers combine and use multiple solutions tailored to their growth stage.

For "seller coupons", a customer relationship management (CRM) function, the effect of improving sales lasted for about 3 months. The survey found that stores where "monthly use reviews" accumulated more than twice as much as in the early period saw sales rise by as much as 9.6 percent.

Yoo said, "Over the past 10 years, Naver has developed its technology infrastructure so that sellers can respond to a changing market environment," and added, "Such growth infrastructure can be used in the AX transition process as well."

Choi said, "Smartstore has built a seller-centred ecosystem by connecting search, payments, data, logistics and financial infrastructure."