Competition pushes convenience stores to upgrade

The second floor of the newly-opened emart24 store in Samcheong-dong, northern Seoul shows tourist goods on display in an interior showing traditional Korean motifs. / Courtesy of emart24

By Kim Ji-soo

The pricy Whole Foods Market grocery stores in the United States make for an interesting visit because of the products and services they offer that are not yet available in Korean stores.

For example, one Whole Foods in Richmond, Virginia, features countless aisles of fresh produce, as well as so-called beer bars, salad bars and even olive bars. Shops in other regions exhibit for example more integrated online-offline shop features, as Amazon has entered the grocery market against the larger context where retailers are experimenting with different models of businesses.

Recently, Korean retailers, including hypermarkets, department stores and convenience stores, have also been diversifying their products and services. The strategy has especially been prominent among convenience stores, as more of them open up in tandem with the rising number of singles looking to shop in quantitative units and at nearby stores.

One latecomer to the Korean convenience store industry, emart24, has been adding such touches of luxury to its new stores.

The emart24 store in the northern Seoul neighborhood of Samcheong-dong near the presidential office looks more like a quaint shop on the street than a 24-hour convenience store.

The two-story store has wooden touches in its interiors and a smattering of traditional Korean motifs. Its first floor features an array of daily necessities and other goods, while its second floor features a cafe selling traditional Korean beverages. Also, there are sections offering lunch boxes developed by a chef and an array of tourist goods, including traditional Korean liquor. There is also a space where customers can sit down on the floor Korean-style to enjoy their purchases.

"We are seeing a lot of tourists come in, like 50 percent of the time on weekdays and 60 percent on weekends. I would say the reception of the store has been good in terms of sales," store manager Lee Byung-chan said.

"The people who work here basically know how to speak English, and some of us, Chinese."

The convenience store was known to consumers as With Me until last month, when the company began rebranding itself as emart24. In addition to the name change, the Shinsegae affiliate has been adding new concepts to its stores; its store at Starfield COEX Mall in Samseong-dong, southern Seoul, for instance, features freshly cooked rice.

The convenience store industry in Korea has been experiencing an uptick for the past several years, as single households continue to increase.

Statistics Korea estimated 5.1 million single-person households in the country in 2015, up significantly from 171,000 from a year earlier, owing primarily to the rising number of people moving out of their parents' homes, divorcees and elderly singles in a fast-aging society. These singles altogether account for 27 percent of the total estimated 19 million households in the nation, and the figure is expected to continue to grow for as long as the above factors, such as Koreans living apart from their parents and putting off marriage, persist.

The number of convenience stores may also increase, as many retirees and individuals are interested in opening their own stores. Statistics Korea data showed that convenience stores, along with fried chicken shops and coffee shops, comprised 38 percent of the 180,000 franchise stores in Korea at the end of 2015. This figure includes 30,000 convenience stores, 25,000 fried chicken shops and 14,000 coffee shops.

Thus, companies, including earlier entrants such as CU, GS25 and 7-Eleven, are working to retain or grab a larger share of the market by providing a diverse range of services, from postal to dry cleaning services.

Recently, 7-Eleven, an affiliate of Lotte Group here, began offering a return service where people can return items purchased from the group's home shopping channel through the convenience stores. The rebranding and upgrade by the late entrant emart24 is a similar attempt to capture a greater market share.

This August, emart24 said it will invest 300 billion won ($261 million) over the next three years to nurture its convenience stores and become a market leader, surpassing early market entrants who have been there since the 1980s.

"Based on Korea's population, the ideal number of convenience stores would be 18,000. But now, we already have 30,000 and that figure is expected to reach 40,000 by late this year. Latecomers must have a new competitive edge," said Suh Yong-gu, a professor of business administration at Sookmyung Women's University.

And as convenience store companies compete, consumers can expect to see a more varied shopping experience.

"The convenience stores will invariably face declining sales, but in the future, as Korean society rapidly ages, more consumers will shop for smaller units of necessary items at nearby convenience stores, just like in Japan, rather than at larger supermarkets," he said.

An olive bar installed at a Whole Foods Market in Richmond, Virginia / Courtesy of Jessica Lai Perez