South Korean food company Pulmuone said Friday it has completed the construction of Pulmuone Institute of Technology, the first research and development center that has received certification from the US-based Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. According to the company, its new institute received a “Gold” level in LEED, which is one of the widely used green building rating system. Bu...

Tmon, an e-commerce platform in South Korea, promised Friday to turn profit this year as it marks its 10th anniversary. With the goal of going public, the firm’s Chief Executive Officer Lee Jin-won revealed his ambition to lead the e-commerce market. “Tmon is a company that has been labeled the most as ‘the industry’s first,’ in Korea’s e-commerce market. We started as the country’s first socia...

CEO Luke Jensen describes Korea’s retail market as “early adopter” to online groceries

Cafe24, a South Korean e-commerce solutions company, said Wednesday it has joined Facebook’s new initiative, “Shops,” as a partner. Facebook announced the launch of Shops on Tuesday to allow small businesses to set up a single online store for customers to access on both its platform and Instagram. Cafe24, which provides solutions to create online stores and related services, such as marketing,...

Tmon, an e-commerce platform here, said Monday it would deliver 29.1 million won ($23,625) raised from donations to a teenager suffering from a rare skin disease. To mark this year’s Children’s Day – on May 5 -- Tmon said it partnered with Miral Welfare Foundation, a local nongovernmental organization, to start a social donation campaign on its platform for a teenage patient named Park Jun-seo. ...

Demand, sales of chicken breasts soar, upping competition among food, home meal replacement companies

The outbreak of the novel coronavirus has led to a change in the home appliance consumption trends, with increased popularity of electronics helping household chores and less demand for grooming and beauty-related products, according to the retail industry Sunday. According to Homeplus, a South Korean discount chain, the sales of dishwashers and dish dryers jumped by 36 times in March and April ...

Once industry-leading dairy firm faces boycott after series of controversies

South Korean liquor maker HiteJinro said Friday it will renew its flagship soju product Chamisul Fresh, lowering the alcoholic content by 0.1 percent to 16.9 percent to match with rival soju brands. Chamisul Fresh is the No. 1 soju brand by sales here. According to the company, the renewed Chamisul Fresh is produced by applying different manufacturing techniques and it will also change part of ...

Online shopping surged nearly 12 percent from a year earlier in March, data showed Wednesday, an apparent outcome of the new coronavirus outbreak that forced people to stay home. The value of online transactions came to about 12.58 trillion won ($10.3 billion) in the month, up 11.8 percent from the same month last year, according to the data from Statistics Korea. The increase followed a 24.5 p...

Retailers roll out themed goods as established brands aim to refresh identities

“We are presenting the discount event so that customers can deliver their gratitude to their loved ones during Family Month,” a Lotte Food official said. The 7-Eleven convenience store chain is releasing 50 gift sets to celebrate Family Month, including carnation bouquets and functional food gift sets from CheongKwanJang, a red ginseng brand from the Korea Ginseng Corp. These gift sets are desi...

South Korean e-commerce platform Coupang launched a same-day Rocket Fresh service Wednesday. The service will allow customers who order fresh food items before 10 a.m. to receive them by 6 p.m. The Rocket Fresh service has been operating its dawn overnight deliveries since October 2018. Coupang said the same-day service has been offered in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak as demands for online...

South Korea’s online shopping rate was listed as second highest in the world amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a research firm said Monday. According to dunnhumby, a global customer data science company , Korea ranked second after China in the survey studying online consumption patterns, conducted with 7,677 consumers in 19 countries affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The 19 countries include five in...

The livestream marketing is receiving some positive results amid the COVID-19 outbreak, as people get indirect shopping experiences at home. Lotte Department Store runs “100LIVE,” a webcast channel on its online retail site Lotte Premium Mall. Similar to TV home shopping channels, it hired show hosts and influencers who offer a close view of products and actually try on the clothes and bags they...