E-Mart Bets Big on "Daiz Sports" to Compete against Uniqlo, Zara, and H&M

E-Mart has set an ambitious goal of reaching 1 trillion won in fashion business sales by 2023. (image: E-Mart)

SEOUL, Oct. 19 (Korea Bizwire) – E-Mart, Korea’s largest discount store retailer, will launch a new clothing brand “Daiz Sports” in the fall season. The company started the brand “Daiz” in 2010 with clothing lines for children, infants, and golfers.

With the latest addition of the sports line, E-Mart expects to offer full lines of clothes for everyone in all age groups, competing head-on with major SPA brands such as Uniqlo, Zara, and H&M.

The main reason E-Mart invests heavily in the sportswear business is it has seen a big rise in the sales of sports and outdoor clothing for the past few years.

For the ten-month period of this year alone, the company sold 150 percent more sportswear from the same period last year. It brought in merchandisers specializing in this area last year and has since done in-depth market research before launching.

In the United States, it has been years since large discount stores are offering sports and outdoor clothes lines at an affordable price range of US$30-40 under their own store brands, including C9 by Champion (Target), Russell (Walmart), and Danskin Now (Walmart).

E-Mart has set an ambitious goal of reaching 1 trillion won in fashion business sales by 2023, from about 200 billion won in 2010 and 400 billion won this year. Given the sales revenues of the major SPA brands (as of 2013) were 700 billion won for Uniqlo, 230 billion won for Zara, and 125 billion won for H&M, E-Mart’s Daiz is ranked No. 2 after Uniqlo.

Lee Gap-soo, president of E-Mart, said, “The biggest advantage of Daiz over rival brands is it understands the changes in demography such as aging and the increase of single population and comes up with clothing items that cater specifically to different demographic groups. We will try to soon overtake Uniqlo and become the nation’s largest SPA fashion brand.”