Hyundai Department Store hit for exaggerating Amazon partnership
Hyundai Department Store Chairman Chung Ji-sun, left, and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. / Korea Times file
By Park Jae-hyuk
Hyundai Department Store Group is facing a backlash for exaggerating its recent agreement with an Amazon subsidiary, giving the impression that the Korean group had directly joined hands with the U.S. e-commerce giant, industry officials said Sunday.
The overstatement is being seen as an attempt to take advantage of Amazon's reputation as the world's largest e-commerce company.
Last week, the Korean retailer issued a press release titled, “Hyundai Department Store Group joins hands with Amazon to create futuristic retail outlet,” after signing a strategic collaboration agreement with Amazon Web Service (AWS), an Amazon subsidiary that provides on-demand cloud computing platforms.
The press release's first sentence also reads, “Hyundai Department Store has become the nation's first retailer to join hands with the world's largest e-commerce firm, Amazon, to begin researching a futuristic retail outlet.”
Although the press release mentions AWS in the second paragraph, many local news outlets focused more on the name of Amazon in the title and the first sentence, so they wrote articles headlined, “Amazon will finally come to Korea,” “Hyundai Department joins hands with Amazon” and “Korean version of Amazon Go will open on Yeouido.”
Several news outlets even reported the story in English, and Amazon reportedly asked them to specify the name of its subsidiary in the articles, saying U.S. headquarters had yet to consider joining the e-commerce business in Korea. Amazon offers the cloud computing platform service here and helps Korean vendors sell their products globally, but has not entered the nation's e-commerce market, as eBay did.
Against this backdrop, Yonhap News Agency, which reported the news in English, corrected its article's title and several sentences, changing “Amazon” to “AWS.”
However, Hyundai Department Store has denied any conflict with the Amazon headquarters and AWS.
“We showed the press release to AWS two weeks before issuing it, and AWS confirmed it,” a Hyundai Department Store spokesman said, blaming the news outlets for the misleading reports.
He admitted AWS demanded that Yonhap correct its English article to prevent any misunderstanding.
But considering that this is not the first time Hyundai Department Store has exaggerated its partnership with global companies, doubts have been raised about whether the company did or did have hidden intentions.
In November 2016, the department store chain claimed its agreement with the sales agent for Louis Vuitton guaranteed the luxury brand would open a shop at its then envisioned duty free store in southern Seoul, if it obtained a government license in December.
But sales agent Bluebell Korea dismissed the claim at that time, saying it never promised to open a Louis Vuitton shop at the yet-to-be-decided duty free store.
Back then, industry officials said the exaggeration reflected the retailer's desperate bid to get an upper hand in the intensifying race for a duty free license.