French luxury brand Louis Vuitton is closing shops at all downtown duty-free stores in South Korea by March 2023. Having stopped running its store at Lotte Duty Free Jeju in December, Louis Vuitton will close three more -- at the Shilla Duty Free in Jeju, Lotte Duty Free in Busan and Lotte World Tower in Jamsil, Seoul -- in March, according to UK travel retail media outlet Moodie Davitt Report. ...

Lotte Hotel, the hotel chain owned by Korea’s retail giant Lotte Group, said Monday that it will open a new hotel in Chicago next year, the first overseas launch under its lifestyle boutique hotel brand L7. Lotte said it completed an acquisition of Kimpton Hotel Monaco Chicago for 42.8 billion won ($35.9 million) on Friday (US time) in a joint investment with the state-run Korea Overseas Infrast...

Amid the prolonged strike of unionized delivery workers of CJ Logistics, the logistics unit of Korea’s conglomerate CJ Group, government is planning to deploy additional workers to prepare for a delivery surge in the upcoming New Year’s holiday. According to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, starting Monday, it will deploy around 10,000 delivery workers to the field from Jan. 1...

South Korean e-commerce giant Coupang said Wednesday it has exclusively launched the product lines of Nitori, Japan’s largest furniture and household goods brand. According to the company, Coupang will directly import Nitori products so that customers in Korea can conveniently purchase the brand’s items. Celebrating the launch, Coupang presents a limited-time offer from Wednesday to Friday. Any...

Market valuation estimates of local digital platforms that promote individual trading of secondhand products have been on the rise with traditional retailers and even banks injecting large investments in hopes of them becoming the next Coupang and Market Kurly. Some market insiders say that valuation of Danggeun Market, the nation’s biggest secondhand trading app by transaction volume, is estima...

Retail giant Shinsegae Group saw its shares plunge on Monday as a controversial social media post from the group’s heir and Vice Chairman Chung Yong-jin sparked investor jitters. The company’s stocks shed 6.8 percent to close at 233,000 won ($196.23) Monday against the benchmark KOSPI’s 0.95 percent decline. The plunge in stock value comes after Chung made several politically charged remarks in...

Starbucks Korea, the nation’s No. 1 specialty coffee chain, said Wednesday it is considering bumping up the price for a cup of Americano in almost eight years due to the price surge in coffee beans imported from overseas. “Even when other franchise coffee shops have increased their coffee prices, we have fixed our price rate. It was bearable back then, but since COVID-19, the price of coffee bea...

CJ CheilJedang, a food manufacturer under Korea’s CJ Group, said Tuesday it will reorganize its business units and refine global market strategies in a bid to efficiently promote its Korean food products worldwide. According to the food giant, it plans to divide its headquarters business into global and regional food unit. Namely the Global Headquarter will take charge in promoting its food pro...

Paris Baguette operator SPC Group promoted its third-generation heir Hur Jin-soo as president of Paris Croissant, the group‘s de facto holding company, the firm announced Thursday. The recent promotion is in recognition of Hur’s contribution to raising Paris Baguette’s brand awareness in major foreign markets, explained SPC. He also led the bakery chain’s joint venture project in Indonesia and C...

Shinsegae and Seoul Auction are teaming up to expand operations in arts, NFTs and metaverse fields, South Korea’s largest art auction house said Thursday. The department store operator will purchase 28 billion-won ($23.6 million) of new shares issued by Seoul Auction, according to a DART announcement posted by the two firms on Wednesday. When the acquisition is finalized on Jan. 6, Shinsegae wi...

A local manufacturer and a distributor of a plastic baby bathtub that was previously recalled for containing high levels of toxic environmental hormones will have to pay compensation to thousands of customers. The Korea Consumer Agency said Wednesday it advised the baby tub’s manufacturer, Daehyeon Chemical, and its intermediate distributor, Kihyun Industries, to pay 50,000 won ($42) to each cus...

Home appliances company Coway said its new induction cooktop is enjoying high demand thanks to its auto cooking function, as more consumers are choosing to cook at home rather than eat out amid the pandemic. The auto cooking function of Coway’s Noble Induction Freedom, launched in November, saves the trouble of watching and controlling the heat for pots and pans to keep the contents from burning...

Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corporation (aT) has been at the center of promoting kimchi overseas, expanding the fermented dish’s presence in the United States and increasing its global exports. Located in Naju, South Jeolla Province, the state-owned company overlooks the distribution and transaction of all agricultural goods produced in Korea. One of its recent efforts is promoting kimchi...

Six out of 10 Koreans do not think fried chicken is Korean food, or hansik, according to a survey from a public institution released Monday. The results come from a survey conducted by the Korea Food Promotion Institution in October on 1,500 Korean nationals aged between 19 to 69. Respondents were shown 30 dishes commonly enjoyed by locals and asked whether they thought the dish was “Korean” or ...

Experts say we depend more on our sense of smell during crisis