Retail News CRM

Tag: Korea

  • Hyundai Department Store slashes workdays for sales staff

    Hyundai Department Store slashes workdays for sales staff

    Hyundai Department Store is introducing last-minute measures to comply with the new 52-hour workweek, which goes into effect next week.

    Korea’s third-largest department store chain is reducing the working hours of its sales staff by one hour, the company said on Thursday.

    “It’s a measure that will catch up with today’s social atmosphere that emphasizes work-life balance,” said the company in a statement.

    Fifteen department stores and four discount outlets nationwide will be affected by the measure. Sales workers who used to come to work at 10 a.m. and left at 8 p.m. will go home at 7 p.m. starting July 1.

    The stores’ operating hours, however, will remain 10:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. The one-hour vacuum left by the change will be filled in by the heads of each sales department and other workers taking turns in groups of 10.

    “We also took into account concerns among our business partners that their revenues will be hit hard when the operating hours shrink, as the economic slowdown is already continuing,” said a Hyundai spokesman.

    The company launched a pilot program that let sales employees leave work 30 minutes early in April, and the experiment was a success.

    Hyundai’s department store rivals – Lotte and Shinsegae – were quicker to slash either their working hours or operating hours, as they started to do so late in May. Hyundai is noted for its conservative work system, but it had to yield to the industry-wide trend, according to an insider.

    Shinsegae Department Store announced earlier this week that it would delay its opening time by one hour to 11 a.m. starting on July 2, with the exception of its main store in central Seoul and branches in Gangnam and South Chungcheong. Its closing hours will be the same as before, at 8 p.m. on weekdays and 8:30 p.m. on weekends. Lotte has yet to adjust the operating hours for its department stores.

    Lotte Confectionary, Lotte Chilsung, Lotte Liquor and Lotte Food also announced on Thursday that they hired 200 more manufacturing workers to cope with the new workweek. The additional workers make up more than 10 percent of the entire existing production work force.

    The four affiliates have also vowed to introduce a flexible working hour system based on a three-month basis, given that seasonal demand in the food business fluctuates heavily.

    Lotte, the fifth-largest conglomerate in Korea, has been particularly proactive about the government’s move to improve the country’s working environment.

    Thirty of its subsidiaries have designated hours that employee computers must be shut off to make sure employees cannot work before 9:30 a.m. or after 6:30 p.m.

    Lees ook:

  • Lotte Duty Free to open its second store in Vietnam

    Lotte Duty Free to open its second store in Vietnam

    Lotte Duty Free said Sunday that it has opened its second store in Vietnam at Nha Trang Cam Ranh International Airport as it strives to expand its presence in the Asian market and better serve Chinese and Russian visitors.

    The company, a major player in the duty-free business, said its new store started operating Saturday, as the new passenger terminal at the airport opened for business. It said Lotte has the sole rights to operate the duty-free store at the airport until 2028.

    The airport serves the Nha Trang area in the central part of the Southeast Asian country, with both domestic and international flights being offered to users.

    Lees ook:

    Lees ook:

    Lees ook:

  • Sephora Korea to open door next year

    Sephora Korea to open door next year

    A situations vacant post has revealed French beauty brand Sephora’s plans to launch in Korea next year.

    The job posting for a human resources manager with Sephora Korea included an announcement that the personal and beauty care store chain will be opening an outlet in Korea in the third quarter of next year.

    While this is the brand’s first venture into the South Korean market, it already operates a network of 2300 stores worldwide since being acquired by luxury conglomerate LVMH in 1997. It has operated in China since 2005, where it has 222 outlets.

    Sephora Korea is likely to face tough competition from the local brands dominating the domestic market.

  • Korean Air brand value plummets following scandal

    Korean Air brand value plummets following scandal

    The brand value of Korean Air fell sharply in the second quarter over a series of allegations involving the family that owns it, an appraisal website showed Sunday.

    The flag carrier’s brand value ranked 36th in the April-June period, down from 11th a quarter earlier, according to Brandstock, a South Korean market research firm that determines the rankings of local brands.

    The decline reflects the intense public criticism directed at Korean Air Chairman Cho Yang-ho’s family over a series of allegations of physical and verbal abuse, as well as smuggling and tax evasion.

    Korean Air’s brand value dropped 39 notches in the quarter following the incident.

    Brandstock said Korean Air’s smaller local rival, Asiana Airlines, saw its brand rank rise to 25th place in the second quarter from 35th place three months earlier.

    Lees ook:

  • Homeplus Special to open first store in Daegu

    Homeplus Special to open first store in Daegu

    Korean discount store chain Homeplus has opened a bulk products and grocery store hybrid called Homeplus Special in Daegu.

    The new concept store is housed in the original Homeplus outlet that opened 20 years ago, now converted to operate the new big-box-plus-retail model following underwhelming sales figures and strong rivalry from industry competitors.

    The new hybrid-store concept will allow the brand to target both individual shoppers and businesses that buy in bulk, and aims to eliminate seasonal price differences with blanket, year-round discounts.

    A Homeplus spokesperson said the business plans to convert 15 branches into Homeplus Special stores this year. Another outlet opened yesterday in Busan.

    Lees ook:

  • Shinsegae unveils its first independent hotel in Seoul

    Shinsegae unveils its first independent hotel in Seoul

    L’Escape, Shinsegae’s new boutique hotel, aims to combine the ambience of 19th-century Paris with intriguing restaurants and bars from Korean and foreign trendsetters.

    Located in central Seoul, behind the main Shinsegae Department Store branch, L’Escape opened its doors to the press for the first time.

    “Our ultimate goal is to be a lifestyle platform that offers trendy cultural content and food experiences to enjoy inside the hotel,” said L’Escape’s General Manager Kim Bum-soo. “365 days a year, L’Escape will have something going on, whether it’s a party or [pop-up restaurant by] globally renowned chefs and sommeliers.”

    During the event, L’Escape unveiled a list of partners that collaborated to develop the hotel’s restaurants, bar and cafe. They include Seoul-based dessert cafe Maison M’O, bartender team Taxonomy and The Modern, a two-Michelin-star restaurant located in New York.

    The hotel’s exterior and interior was designed by French architect Jacques Garcia, famous for his luxurious boutique hotels, such as the Hotel Costes in Paris and the NoMad Hotel in New York City.

    Shinsegae also invested heavily in guest amenities for the new hotel. The company hired foreign experts and brands to develop exclusive products for L’Escape, from flower decorations to bedding. Perfumer Alienor Massnet, who has worked with Maison Martin Margiela and Memo Paris, developed a signature scent that will be made into candles and sprays applied to the guest rooms.

    L’Escape’s general manager himself was a major contributor to selecting and signing partnerships. Better known as Pat2Bach, Kim is a well-known power blogger in food and leisure circles.

    Kim was invited to join Shinsegae Group by its Vice President Chung Yong-jin in 2011, and has helped launch the company’s craft beer pub Devil’s Door and organized the eateries inside Starfield malls.

    His appointment as the hotel’s general director is a bit of a surprise, though, as he has no experience as a professional hotelier. “My ambition is to meld the food and cultural experiences I’ve had,” he said. “I think of myself more as a producer that shapes the hotel as a whole instead of a conventional general manager that greets guests.”

    Lees ook:

  • Starbucks Korea to open the 30th upscale Reserve Bar

    Starbucks Korea to open the 30th upscale Reserve Bar

    Starbucks Korea says it will expand its premium Reserve store network to meet the growing demand for specialty coffee among local consumers.

    The company will open two Reserve stores in Seoul and a third in Pangyo, just south of the capital, this week. They will raise to 30 the number of upscale Reserve cafes in the country, which is already the third-largest total of any international market, behind China with 52 and the US with 35.

    Starbucks Korea is a joint venture between Starbucks Coffee International and South Korea’s Shinsegae Group.

    The number of Reserve bars in South Korea stood at 15 as of the end of last year, so has nearly doubled in the past six months.

    “We will continue to increase the number of Reserve bars in line with the growing demand for specialty coffee among local consumers,” a Starbucks Korea official said

    Starbucks remains the undisputed No 1 in Korea’s coffee industry and was the first such chain the country to surpass 1 trillion won (US$895 million) in sales. It has more than 1150 stores nationwide.

    The size of South Korea’s domestic coffee market reached 6.4 trillion won at the end of 2016, up 30.6 per cent from 2014, according to government data.

    Lees ook:

    Lees ook:

  • Merchandise from K-pop is popular with Chinese

    Merchandise from K-pop is popular with Chinese

    K-pop merchandise is selling well on e-commerce platform 11st’s global website, boosted by fans from the greater China region, which account for 43 percent of the products’ sales.

    According to figures for the first five months of the year, 43.2 percent of customers for K-pop merchandise online are from China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.

    A large part of that demand – 30.7 percent – came from Taiwan, which was the No. 1 destination for goods bought on 11st. Japan was second place (10.8 percent), followed by the United States (10.6 percent), China (6.6 percent) and Hong Kong (6.2 percent).

    “Until last year, cosmetics and beauty products were the majority of items bought by foreign customers on our website,” said a spokeswoman for 11st. “But recently revenue from idol-related products, apart from CDs, has started to account for a significant proportion of our sales.”

    The company just started this year to launch promotion and marketing events to sell K-pop merchandise in partnerships with domestic entertainment companies.

    11st sold K-pop merchandise to 60 countries worldwide that included South America, Europe, Middle East and Africa.

    Taiwanese customers had a big preference for merchandise featuring Super Junior, SHINee, TVXQ, Blackpink, iKON and GOT7, while Japanese were keen on merchandise related to Eun Ji-won, a member of Korea’s first-generation idol group SechsKies.

  • Kakao’s technical glitches cause disruptions Monday

    Kakao’s technical glitches cause disruptions Monday

    Korea’s top mobile messenger Kakaotalk resumed normal services after experiencing disruptions around 5 p.m., its operator Kakao said Monday.

    Kakao said the messenger suffered problems for around an hour before being normalized at 5:48 p.m. It claimed there seems to have been some sort of error while the system was being updated.

    Earlier in the day, deliveries of messages on its platform were delayed, and the personal computer version of the program was also not working properly.

    The company said the service is now fully normalized.

    KakaoTalk is the most popular mobile messenger app in Korea, boasting a whopping 40 million users.

    Lees ook:

  • Shinsegae wins Incheon duty-free license

    Shinsegae wins Incheon duty-free license

    Shinsegae Duty Free won two licenses to operate at Incheon International Airport’s Terminal 1 on Friday, beating out Shilla Duty Free in the competitive battle for lucrative slots at one of the world’s most trafficked airports.

    The Korea Customs Service said Shinsegae will be allowed to operate stores in the DF1 and DF5 zones of Terminal 1 from next month until July 2023. In total, Shinsegae now occupies four out of eight duty-free zones allocated to major conglomerates. The other four are run by Lotte Duty Free and Shilla Duty Free. Another four are reserved for smaller operators.

    “DF1 and DF5 are significant spots in terms of size and items they’re allowed to sell,” said a spokesman for Incheon International Airport Corporation, which determines what types of products can be sold in each zone. “DF1 is for cosmetics and perfume, while DF5 is for leather accessories and fashion.”

    The two zones combined occupy more than 8,000 square meters (86,000 square feet), nearly half of Terminal 1’s total duty-free space. Lotte Duty Free, the market leader, initially held the fort but decided to give up the license in February after failing to secure lower rent from Incheon International Airport. It later re-entered the bid after the airport offered cheaper rent.

    Combined, DF1 and DF5 stores used to generate 800 to 900 billion won ($720 to 810 million) a year, equivalent to 6 to 7 percent of the Korean duty-free market’s total sales.

    Shinsegae and Shilla were the final competitors among four bidders that submitted applications to Incheon International Airport Corporation last month. Lotte Duty Free and Doosan Duty Free were ruled out in the first round of evaluation.

    The final round pitted two retail giants run by conglomerate family daughters: Chung Yoo-kyung of Shinsegae Department Store and Lee Boo-jin of Hotel Shilla. Chief executives from the two companies – Han In-kyu for Shilla Duty Free and Son Yung-sik for Shinsegae Duty Free – presented their business plans to customs officials at the Customs Border Control Training Institute in Cheonan, South Chungcheong, on Friday. Officials then assigned each plan a grade.

    Industry sources speculate that Shinsegae’s higher bidding price did the work. Among a total of 1,000 points in the customs office’s grading scale, bidding price took up 400 points. Shinsegae offered 337 billion won for the two zones, while Shilla offered 269.8 billion won.

    In the duty-free industry, the bid upended a market long dominated by Lotte and Shilla. Shinsegae is a relative newcomer in the game, entering in 2012 after acquiring the duty-free business of Paradise Hotel.

    As of last year, the market share of the three major operators was 41.9 percent for Lotte, 29.7 percent for Shilla and 12.7 percent for Shinsegae.

    Shinsegae’s bid win on Friday, though, raises its share to 19 percent, while Lotte’s falls to 36 percent because of the lost space at Incheon. Shilla’s share remains unchanged at 29.7 percent.

    Lees ook:

  • Cosmax opens factory in Thailand to tap market in Asean

    Cosmax opens factory in Thailand to tap market in Asean

    Cosmax’s manufacturing facilities in Thailand recently started up, the company said Monday, with the goal of tapping into Asean’s largest beauty market.

    An original design manufacturer for big-name beauty brands worldwide, the company announced that the 9,000-square-meter (836-square-foot) facility in Bangplee, Thailand, started running on Wednesday.

    With 150 employees, the facility has the capacity to produce 30 million units of skin care and cosmetics products per year.

    Cosmax set up an office in Thailand last year to tap into the beauty market of it and other neighboring countries in the Asean region.

    “Thailand has the biggest beauty market among Asean countries-it’s also an influential market that leads trends in the region,” said a Cosmax spokeswoman.

    Thailand is a rising target for global beauty brands. Johnson & Johnson, P&G and Unilever manufacture there. The research firm Euromonitor estimated the country’s beauty market at 5.6 billion won ($5.01 million) in 2016 and a Kotra report predicted it to reach 7.2 billion won in size by 2021.

    “Thailand has big market potential: It’s at the center of the hallyu wave and has a high level of interest in Korean cosmetics,” said Lee Geon-il, head of Cosmax’s Thailand corporation.

    “There’s also a wide perception that Korean beauty brands have good quality.”

    The spokeswoman added the company hopes to sign more deals with beauty companies in Thailand and other nearby countries.

    The Thai factory completes a two-track plan that Cosmax has for tackling the Asean beauty market. It already has one factory in Indonesia that manufactures halal-certified products.

    Combined, the two facilities will be able to make products for both Muslim and Buddhist populations in the Asean region.

    Cosmax now has six overseas factories in total, including the United States and China.

    Lees ook:

    Lees ook:

  • Naver to invest $134 million on overseas comics business

    Naver to invest $134 million on overseas comics business

    Korea’s top portal operator Naver said Monday it will invest 150 billion won in its online comic platform to better penetrate into overseas markets.

    Naver said it will make the investment through a paid-in capital increase program and acquire 300,000 additional shares in its wholly-owned affiliate, Naver Webtoon.

    Naver Webtoon said it plans to use the cash to expand its presence in foreign markets like the United States and Japan.

    The portal operator has been making various efforts to beef up its comic business, also investing some 60 billion won in January in its affiliate.

    Naver said it currently has some 5 million active users in the United States, claiming the investment will help Naver Webtoon achieve further growth going forward.

  • Woori Bank Korea changes its structure

    Woori Bank Korea changes its structure

    The board of Woori Bank approved a plan to convert the bank into a holding company, pushing up its shares on Wednesday.

    An announcement released late Tuesday said the country’s fourth largest bank would overhaul its structure to become an integrated financial service company with diverse non-banking affiliates.

    The holding company will have six affiliates: Woori Bank, Woori Credit Information, Woori Private Equity Asset Management, Woori FIS, Woori Finance Research Institute and Woori Fund Service.

    Woori Card and Woori Investment Bank will remain subsidiaries of the banking unit and may later be turned into separate affiliates under the new holding company, according to Woori Bank in a statement.

    A shareholder meeting will be held by the end of this year to approve the changes.

    “The plan will help boost competitiveness for Woori affiliates,” a source at Woori Bank said, “We will swiftly carry out the procedure.”

    Analysts said the change in corporate structure could increase the maximum amount of investment allowed by regulators to around 8 trillion won ($7.2 billion).

    Sohn Tae-seung, CEO of Woori Bank, has reiterated that the company is already looking to acquire non-banking companies like asset management and securities companies.

    Earlier this month, a local media outlet reported that Woori Bank plans to acquire Kyobo Securities, but Woori said that nothing has been decided.

    Samsung Securities was also among the potential targets cited by different reports, though Woori declined to confirm that.

    Investors welcomed the board’s decision on Wednesday, and shares of Woori Bank rose 5.88 percent to close at 17,100 won.

    “The decision to put the six Woori units under the holding company and keep Woori Card and Woori Investment Bank under Woori Bank will likely serve the interests of shareholders,” said Baek Doo-san, an analyst at Korea Investment & Securities.

    The plan to turn Woori Bank into a holding company accelerated after the Financial Services Commission, the country’s top financial regulator, said it would sell the government’s stake in the bank once the transformation is complete.

    The government holds 18.4 percent of Woori Bank through the state-owned Korea Deposit Insurance Corporation.

  • 11Street Shopping Mall to get US$449 million investment

    11Street Shopping Mall to get US$449 million investment

    South Korean mobile carrier SK Telecom has announced a US$449 million investment into a subsidiary’s e-commerce platform, 11Street Shopping Mall.

    In a decision yet to be approved by shareholders, SK will use the investment, sourced from the H&Q Korea private equity fund, to establish a new business entity. An SK spokesperson said that further reshuffling among its subsidiary firms will be aimed at seeking a new growth engine with a view to expanding its presence in the country’s online retail market.

    The move directly follows a joint venture set up earlier this month between an SK subsidiary and the country’s largest convenience store chain, CU.

    The improvements to 11Street’s operations will draw on artificial intelligence technologies, among other information and communications developments, to build new services – including improvements to its mobile payment system.

    A representative from SK Telecom said that the company’s new business structure is ready to promptly and flexibly respond to the fourth industrial revolution.

    Lees ook:

    Lees ook:

    Lees ook:

  • ‘Content marketing’ is definitely a game changer

    ‘Content marketing’ is definitely a game changer

    In a Red Bull video on the company’s YouTube channel, you don’t often see the drink itself. In a video entitled “Shaun White’s Private Pipe – Red Bull Project X,” American snowboarder Shaun White is transported to a half-pipe on snowy mountain via a helicopter. The helicopter has the Red Bull logo on its side, and as White does tricks on the half-pipe, a Red Bull flag waves in the background.

    The video, targeting extreme sports enthusiasts, promotes the Red Bull brand without actually showing a person sip out of a can.

    In marketing, that’s called content marketing. An advertiser must offer an advertisement that is essentially content attractive to a target audience. The brand gets its message across by offering something valuable – not just promoting itself.

    This has become a powerful type of marketing with the spread of smartphones and the rise of social media.

    According to a case study by Weidert Group, a marketing agency, Fisher Tank Company, which produces storage tanks, was able to expand its sales through what it described as an “inbound marketing” strategy: getting more people to visit its website by offering different types of content related to the company’s business.

    Robert Rose, chief strategist at Content Marketing Institute (CMI), whose list of consulting clients includes big names such as Dell, Microsoft and NASA, says that such a “disruptive” form of marketing is shifting the way companies around the globe do business, providing customers with new value and experiences – while also promoting a brand.

    Korean companies are not strangers to this model, Rose says.

    Viva Republica, developer of a P2P mobile payment platform Toss, is an example of a local company shaking up its industries, according to Ross, by providing experiences that customers have not seen before.

    Rose is visiting Korea to attend the Content Marketing Asia Forum, the first content marketing forum in the region, as the keynote speaker. The event, organized by CMI, will take place from June 27 to 29 under theme “Content Marking, the Game Changer of Business.”

    Lees ook:

    Lees ook: