Reporting and analysis on retail, e-commerce, and consumer trends in Korea, updated continuously by our newsroom.
DHL Express will invest €131m in expanding its hub at Incheon International Airport to meet expected growth in online sales in the Asia Pacific region. The investment will see DHL expand its Incheon Gateway facility to a gross floor area of 58,700 sq m from…
South Korean big-box retailer E-mart will sell 13 store buildings and land to improve its financial situation. The firm will sell the properties to Mastern Investment Management for KRW952.48 billion (US$802.65 million) in the face of plummeting sales and…
America’s Habit Burger Grill is eyeing South Korea expansion in partnership with consulting firm Bridging Culture Worldwide. “South Korea, with its savvy consumers, open-minded culture and interest in global brands is an ideal marketplace for The Habit Burger…
Major South Korean convenience-store chain CU is preparing to accept payments in cryptocurrency. The chain, which operates more than 13,000 outlets in the country, will use the Chai payment system to trade in Terra, a won-backed stablecoin that has garnered…
ZTE, a major international provider of telecommunications, enterprise and consumer technology solutions for the Mobile Internet, together with China Telecom and Haier AC, has today released the industry’s first 5G NB-IoT-based shared air-conditioner…
Korean mobile lifestyle platform company Kakao has associated with IMG to exclusively license its character brand Kakao Friends in Europe. Originating from South Korea’s leading messenger platform Kakao Talk, Kakao Friends’ characters have gained millions of…
South Korea’s CU convenience store chain will expand its footprint to Vietnam, its second international market after Mongolia. BGF Retail, the operator of CU, signed a master-franchise agreement with CUVN, a Vietnam-based convenience store operator, on…
Financial solutions firm Alliex will invest over $700 million to build shared Point of Sales (POS) across Vietnam. Alliex plans to install a total of 600,000 shared POS devices in Vietnam over the next five years, its director Park Byounggun told Deputy Prime…
The subscription services economy – through which one can periodically receive products or services instead of purchasing them outright – is on the rise in South Korea. Rental services, which used to be represented by water purifiers, are now in their heyday…
South Korea’s CU convenience store chain will expand its footprint to Vietnam, its second international market after Mongolia. BGF Retail, the operator of CU, signed a master franchise agreement with CUVN, a Vietnam-based convenience store operator, on…
Do you live for the drama? Then you’ve probably heard about some of the names in this article. Even if you have been living or traveling to countries such as China where Netflix geo-restricts their content, you have no excuse for missing out. You can easily…
Cornered by a low-price offensive from online sellers, South Korean retailers are striking back with a so-called ‘malling’ strategy. ‘Malling’ refers to all leisure activities at the mall, including shopping, dining, and watching movies or experiencing other…
Fast-fashion chain Uniqlo is suffering from the South Korean consumer boycott of Japanese goods. “We can confirm that there has been an impact on the sales in Korea,” a spokeswoman for Uniqlo owner Fast Retailing told Reuters. She declined to release any…
South Korean online shoppers still see offline stores as a crucial part of shopping, a recent study has shown. Furthermore, despite the widely held belief that consumers will engage in online shopping during lunch breaks, or before they go to bed, the study…
Starbucks Korea has reported a 28-per-cent year-on-year jump in its operating profit in the first half of the year amid rising appetite for premium coffee, discount store chain E-Mart said Tuesday. From January to June, the US coffee giant posted an operating…
South Korean health-and-beauty stores have suspended sales of products from Japanese beauty firm DHC Corp, after the company made offensive remarks about Koreans. The products are being withdrawn from shelves of retailers in yet another chapter of a growing…
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