SEOUL, Feb. 12 (Korea Bizwire) — Sales of toys and functional foods are surging in South Korea as children stay home longer and people pay more attention to their health due to a prolonged new coronavirus scare, industry sources said Wednesday. Online shopping site Auction said its sales of toys for toddlers and children skyrocketed [...]
SEOUL, Feb. 11 (Korea Bizwire) — South Koreans are increasingly favoring shopping online for daily necessities due to safety concerns over the spread of a new strain of coronavirus, analysts said Tuesday. “Shopper sentiment has grown more against offline shopping,” said SK Securities Co. analyst Lee So-joong, after people later diagnosed with the new coronavirus [...]
SEOUL, Feb. 10 (Korea Bizwire) — The South Korean retail industry may suffer larger losses from the novel coronavirus than the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in 2015, analysts said Monday, citing the new virus’ high rate of infection and tightened quarantine efforts. “The new coronavirus may have a lower fatality rate compared with MERS, [...]
SEOUL, Feb. 7 (Korea Bizwire) — With the spread of the novel coronavirus infection, sales of food for home cooking are on the rise at large discount stores. As consumers are reluctant to go out, bulk products or non-perishable items are becoming popular. E-Mart Inc., the country’s leading discount chain operator, compared its sales between [...]
SEOUL, Feb. 7 (Korea Bizwire) — Lotte Department Store, one of the country’s major department store chain operators, said Friday that one of its outlets in downtown Seoul will be temporarily closed starting late Friday for a cleanup following a recent visit there by a patient diagnosed with the new coronavirus. The store in the [...]
SEOUL, Feb. 6 (Korea Bizwire) — Competition over delivery services in the convenience store industry is heating up. Convenience store chain GS25 recently launched delivery services at seven stores in Seoul in partnership with food delivery service Coupang Eats operated by e-commerce giant Coupang Inc. First of all, the company plans to implement delivery services [...]
SEOUL, Feb. 5 (Korea Bizwire) — Several South Korean duty-free shops that temporarily shut down after people infected with Wuhan coronavirus visited them will reopen later this week, their operators said Wednesday. Shilla Duty Free, one of the country’s leading duty-free stores, on Sunday closed its two outlets in central Seoul and on the southern [...]
SEOUL, Feb. 4 (Korea Bizwire) — Consumers are resorting to online shopping to purchase everyday goods as the Wuhan coronavirus continues to expand worldwide. Coupang Inc., one of South Korea’s major online shopping portals, announced on Sunday that its Rocket Fresh service, an early morning delivery service for fresh food, could be delayed by a [...]
SEOUL, Feb. 4 (Korea Bizwire) — Sales at South Korean duty-free stores hit a new annual high of over 24 trillion won last year, industry data showed Tuesday, mainly on the back of more foreign customers, mainly Chinese visitors. The combined sales of local duty-free shops reached 24.86 trillion won (US$20.87 billion) in 2019, up [...]
SEOUL, Feb. 4 (Korea Bizwire) — As the standards of food selection extend beyond taste and nutrition to beauty and health, success cases of new protein-based products are emerging in earnest. Launched in April last year by Orion Corp., a major confectionery company in South Korea, the Dr. You Protein Bar had seen sales of [...]