By Kwon Mee-yoo
Kim Ji-won, an office worker in her 20s, went to a department store near her office to buy some spring clothes last week. She looked around the mall, listened to explanations of clerks and tried on the items she liked. However, after trying them on, instead of buying the pieces, she took pictures of the tags with product codes and left the shop.
"I will look up the product code on the Internet and there are usually more discounts and promotions, so I prefer buying online," she said.
Still, Kim loves to go shopping offline. "It is difficult to imagine the exact color or texture only based on the photo and descriptions online, so I try clothes on at shops to make sure they looks good on me," she said. “Sometimes, I buy at the website of the department store. They have different promotions going on in the store and on the website, so I have to compare prices before making a purchase.”
Kim is not the only one who shops this way. Statistics also prove this trend.
The Ministry of Knowledge Economy surveyed sales of the three major local department stores ― Hyundai, Lotte and Shinsegae ― in January, and saw monthly turnover was down 4.1 percent from the same period in the previous year.
Contrary to sluggish sales of department stores, online shopping is ever-increasing. According to Statistics Korea, the volume of Internet shopping jumped 16.3 percent to 7.3 trillion won in the third quarter last year from the previous year. Mobile shopping using smartphones is also on the rise.
Department stores are adjusting to this shift in shopping habits by introducing more unique brands and items. Presenting something that is only available at department stores is one way to attract customers.
Lotte Department Store opened BY ET TOL featuring clothing and fashion accessories from some 30 exclusive brands, at its main Sogong-dong branch in central Seoul, last week.
The brands in BY ET TOL includes CLU from the United States, MASSCOB from Spain and second lines of luxury brand such as McQ. Twenty8Twelve, a fashion brand launched by actress Siena Miller, is only available through BY ET TOL in Korea.
"Our staff members looked into some 200 brands in and out of Korea to make up the multi-brand shop. We also collaborated with young designers such as Steve J and Yoni P to create private label products," a merchandiser of Lotte Department Store said. "The price range of BY ET TOL is about 80 percent of similar fashion brands."
Shinsegae Department Store, which already operates select vendors of shoes and bags, will diversify the items featured in the concept store.
Shinsegae opened a select shop of young Korean shoes designers, such as Ma Vie En Rose, Reike Nen and Flat Apartment, at its Gangnam branch earlier this month. It was the first time for a department store to open a multi-brand store for young designers' who have street retail shops in local hot spots such as Garosu-gil or Samcheong-dong.
"We plan to introduce more products of aspiring designers in shoes, clothing and accessories. It is going to benefit not only us, but the designers and customers as well as they can watch fresh items at once at our select shops," a Shinsegae official said.