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| People buy BTS merchandise at a Line Friends store in Mapo-gu, Seoul, Wednesday. Retailers have been enjoying brisk sales of the merchandise as well as the album packages with the group's increasing popularity worldwide. / Yonhap |
By Jung Da-min
Certain retailers have emerged as the latest beneficiary from the ongoing popularity of boy band BTS as fans rush to buy its latest album and various merchandise the group promotes.
Hundreds of thousands of BTS fans abroad are purchasing character products, smartphones, apparel and other items promoted by the seven-member boy band online, while some even come to Korea for shopping sprees.
With the group's latest album "Love Yourself: Tear" topping the Billboard 200 album chart less than two weeks after its May 18 release, the number of overseas fans who want to buy previous releases has also increased dramatically.
According to eBay Korea, sales of a 65,000 won priced BTS album set between April 18 and May 18, led to a 40 percent year-on-year increase of customers to its book and album sites from the same period in 2017.
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| BTS latest album set / Courtesy of eBay Korea |
Its Gmarket Global Shop book and album category also saw a 106 percent increase year-on-year in customers during the first week of May, thanks to the brisk sales of BTS albums. An album package that includes CDs with photo books, mini books and photo cards, has seen strong sales online.
Among customers from 54 countries, Taiwan topped the list accounting for 20 percent of all sales followed by China with 11 percent; while Southeast Asian countries including Malaysia (11 percent), Taiwan (8 percent), Vietnam, Myanmar, Indonesia and the Philippines accounted for 30 percent of sales.
Customers from Middle East countries, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as well as those from Europe also bought from the online platform, the company said. K-pop's growing popularity in the UAE is a recent phenomenon, with fans there gaining access to K-pop content through internet platforms such as YouTube.
EBay is enjoying increasing sales of other items promoted by BTS such as cosmetics (mask packs) and fashion brands (T-shirts). The website operates services in English and Chinese.
Offline stores are also enjoying brisk sales of BTS related items. Fans were recently spotted lining up in front of a Line Friends store in Mapo-gu, Seoul, to buy the products the company and band collaborated on.
"BT21" is a product range featuring eight figurine characters created by members of the band. The characters are not modeled after the members themselves, but the group participated in creating them.
The character lineup was first unveiled at Line Friends stores in New York's Times Square and Boon the Shop in Seoul last December, and received a lot of attention from fans worldwide. In particular, the Times Square store attracted 35,000 visitors daily with the launch of BT21.
A Line Friends store in Itaewon started sales of the BT21 lineup in January, and on the first day of sales saw a queue of over 500 people waiting to buy the characters before the store opened.
Line Friends also began selling the products at the Naver Store Farm and Amazon Global Line Friends brand mall, as well as offering the characters at a duty free shop at Incheon International Airport from January. In addition, it has an offline store in Harajuku, Japan, which was visited by 15,000 people on the day of launching BT21 products. Online and offline stores in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Thailand will soon introduce the products.
