Cafe24 said on Wednesday that 35,836 new direct-to-consumer online stores were launched through its e-commerce platform, its highest figure in five years.

The latest data means that store launchings during the quarter experienced a near 40 percent year-on-year increase, which comes down to over 10,000 new stores opening each month.

September recorded the biggest growth during the quarter with 11,545 new stores joining the platform, a 50.34 percent jump from 3,866 in the same period last year.

Cafe24 incorporates artificial intelligence and has tools to help merchants set up a store easily, including Edibot, which uses AI to categorize product images and SERA, which draws consumer purchasing patterns from big data to complete real-time analysis.

On a recent surge in entrepreneurship, the platform said a shift toward contactless business is driving more direct-to-consumer store launches on its platform.

“We will continue to enhance our platform’s technical capabilities to lower the barrier to online entrepreneurship even further,” said Jaesuk Lee, CEO of Cafe24.

By Yim Hyun-su (hyunsu@heraldcorp.com)