GS Retail recruits local residents to deliver products

South Korean convenience-store operator GS Retail plans to hire local residents with ample knowledge about their neighborhoods to speed delivery of products in areas where alleyways and addresses may prove confusing.

GS Retail, which runs the convenience-store chain GS25, will begin testing its new ‘Neighborhood Delivery’ service, which is open to all applicants without limits to time and task.

Each person will be delivering products within a 1.5km radius of their current location. The products, too, will weigh less than 5kg, allowing retirees, homemakers, and after-work office workers to work without difficulty.

If a customer orders a product from a nearby GS25 convenience store through the Yogiyo app, the delivery person can respond to an incoming delivery call to bring the product to the customer.

Each delivery will pay US$2.35-$2.68 in commissions.

GS Retail plans to test the new delivery program at three convenience stores in Seoul’s Gangnam District starting Monday. On August 17, the program will be expanded to cover all GS25 stores throughout Seoul.

The company aims to infiltrate the $17 billion delivery market with ‘Neighborhood Delivery’, a short-distance quick-commerce platform based on 15,000 brick-and-mortar stores.