South Korea’s online brands expand to physical stores

The stores were designed to appeal to the younger generations.

A growing number of online shopping malls and online exclusive brands in South Korea are opening physical stores in recent days as part of their new marketing initiatives targeting the youth, Korea Bizwire reported.

The online fashion platform, Hago, opened its first offline store ‘#16’ in the Dongtan branch of Lotte Department Store in August. Customers in the store use online orders and payments through a mobile app. The products they select are shipped one or two days later.

The store’s cumulative sales broke the $425,350 (KRW500m) mark just one month after opening, ranking first in terms of sales amongst the branch’s women’s clothing stores.

Shinsegae CASA also opened an offline store for its online exclusive furniture brand ‘Onion’ in Gyeonggi Province this month, featuring a special space for interior items designed for single-person households and newly married couples, as well as a photo zone for young customers.

Online fashion platform Musinsa opened its first offline store in Hongdae in Seoul in May. Designed with large fitting rooms furnished with lighting and smartphone cradles, the rooms are designed to make a stronger appeal to the selfie-loving youth.