By Jane Han
Staff Reporter
Hyundai Department Store saleswoman Kim So-young stands observing shoppers cruising up and down the aisles of a southern Seoul mall at midday Monday. Spotting an apparently American customer wandering around, Kim makes her approach and asks, in English, ``Are you searching for something in particular?''
The shopper instantly looks relieved and the two briefly walk away, discussing an anti-ageing cream made by a little-known European maker.
``Many of our shoppers get super-surprised when we start speaking to them in English, Japanese or Chinese,'' said Kim, after convincing her client to purchase a Lancome night cream instead of the product she was looking for, which was out of stock.
Kim is one of Hyundai's newest foreign language-proficient staff, who specializes in assisting the booming number of non-Korean shoppers. The department store chain recently hired nearly 40 staff fluent in Japanese, English or German.
Other top emporiums Galleria, Lotte and Shinsegae department stores are also beefing up their foreigner-friendly marketing to attract overseas shoppers, who seem to have a lot more money to spend now than they did a few months ago thanks to the weak Korean won.
The local currency lost 25.7 percent against the U.S. dollar, 31 percent against the Chinese yuan and almost 40 percent against the Japanese yen last year.
``Shoppers from the U.S. and Japan in particular are stretching the value of their money, so our job is to help them spend away,'' said Choi Tae-sung, an official at Yongsan I'Park Mall, a luxury shopping outlet in central Seoul.
The store's intercom announcements made in English, Japanese and Chinese throughout the day are part of its latest promotion to engage visitors unfamiliar with Korean.
Choi explained that revenue generated by foreigners has shot up more than 70 percent over the last six months.
The strong figure is largely due to the rising number of inbound visitors, but foreign residents living in Korea ― who now have a more generous budget ― also make up a large chunk of the spending crowd.
``Business executives and ambassadors are our main targets,'' said Lim Joon-hyung of Shinsegae, which started sending out shopping brochures to some 100 ambassadors and their spouses in Korea.
Under what it dubs ``embassy marketing,'' the retailer provides VIP services to diplomats, their husbands and wives when they make an outing.
``Ambassadors generally get paid in U.S. dollars or other foreign currencies, so they have a lot more money to spend now than they did a year ago,'' said Lim.
Industry experts say that it makes sense for them to speed up engaging foreigners, considering the growing number of overseas residents living here.
According to the Ministry of Public Administration and Security, more than 890,000 foreigners have resided in Korea for more than 90 days as of last May. The figure represents 2 percent of the population.
``Contrary to popular belief, the retail sector can be one of the most shut and conservative,'' said one executive at a top retailer, who didn't want to be named. ``Retailers didn't bother turning to foreigners because they weren't considered significant spenders in the past, but now they've come to the rescue.''
jhan@koreatimes.co.kr
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