E-mart to close all PK PEACOCK stores
PEACOCK kitchen at Emart Town in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province / Courtesy of E-mart
By Kim Jae-heun
E-mart, the country's largest supermarket chain operated by Shinsegae, said it will shut down its two PK PEACOCK stores, as the stores failed to generate sufficient profits.
Targeting one- and two-person households, as well as housewives in their 40s and 50s, E-mart launched its first PK PEACOCK store in Daechi-dong, Seoul, in 2018, meeting the rapidly rising demand for home meal replacement (HMR) products.
PEACOCK is E-mart's own brand focused on HMR items that the supermarket started selling in 2013. As it made a 34 billion won profit in the first year, PEACOCK quickly gained popularity, recording 100 billion won in revenue in 2015 and 200 billion won in 2017.
The retail giant revealed its plan to introduce premium meal kit items the following year and collect some 1,000 products varying from soups, stews and desserts to sell at PK PEACOCK stores.
E-mart expected its special HMR store to flourish but it soon came up against the COVID-19 pandemic that caused shopping trends to shift from in-store to online.
Its first PK PEACOCK store closed last month and its second branch in Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province, is scheduled to shut down next Sunday.
“We will only close our PEACOCK stores. Our HMR business is still flourishing. We only opened two branches to test the market response. They are closing because of business insufficiency and unprofitability,” an E-mart official said.
E-mart has been closing down its special stores, which recorded a collective annual loss of 90 billion won. Last year, Shinsegae Group Vice Chairman Chung Yong-jin scouted Kang Heui-seok from the consulting firm Bain & Company to appoint him as CEO of E-mart ahead of its reshuffle.
Kang quickly got rid of E-mart's health and beauty product store Boots, the bargain store Pierrot Shopping and menswear brand Show & Tell.