1. The rise of online retail industry "Online shopping has become the main channel for consumers to shop." This sentence is perfect to describe the Korean retail market. Recently, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy of South Korea conducted an investigation on 13 offline retailers in South Korea, including 3 department stores, 3 hypermarkets, 3 convenience stores and 4 semi-large stores (SSM), as well as 12 major online retailers. investigation. The survey shows that total sales of South Korean retailers will increase from 166.8 trillion won in 2022 to 177.4 trillion won in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 6.3%. Moreover, the sales of major offline and online retailers have experienced great growth, with year-on-year growth of 3.7% and 9% respectively. Judging from the specific sales proportion, department stores, large supermarkets, and SSM will all experience varying degrees of decline in 2023, with only convenience stores rising slightly by 0.3%; while the proportion of online retail sales in total retail sales increased by 1.3% to 50.5 %, this is the first time that online retail sales in South Korea have exceeded offline retail sales. At the same time, the gap in online and offline retail growth has widened again. In terms of annual sales growth and decrease rates in the past five years (2019-2023) and the previous year, online retail sales were 14.2%, 18.4%, 15.7%, 9.5% and 9% respectively, while offline retail sales during the same period were respectively It is -1.8%, -3.6%, 7.5%, 8.9%, 3.7%. It is obvious that the data difference between the two widens from 0.6% in 2022 to 5.3% in 2023. The proportion of online retail sales in South Korea is increasing, indicating that the Korean e-commerce market is becoming more and more prosperous. The rise of online retail has also benefited from the rapid development of online shopping technologies and services, such as fast payment and fast delivery services, which has promoted sales growth. 2. Online growth slows down Although the development of South Korea's online retail market shows a bright future, those who are interested may find that the growth rate of online retail sales is slowly slowing down. In 2020, the growth rate of South Korea's online retail sales reached a peak of 17.5% in the past five years. However, with the disappearance of e-commerce dividends, this data has since declined significantly and has now fallen to single digits. In the retail industry, this is not a good phenomenon. In fact, due to the slowdown in economic development and the pressure of high living costs, the consumer confidence of Korean consumers has become increasingly low. For example, in November 2023, South Korea's consumer confidence index was 97.2, down 0.9 points from the previous month. This was also the fourth consecutive month of decline and hit the lowest point since April last year. The declining consumer confidence index means they will be more cautious when shopping. Unlike in the past, Korean consumers have begun to change their consumption habits, with more and more people choosing to use electronic coupons and purchase refurbished goods to reduce costs. Moreover, low-priced goods are becoming generally sought after by consumers. In October last year, South Korea's online sales reached 20,090.5 billion won, setting a record monthly level. It was also the first time since statistics were collected in 2001 that online sales exceeded 20 trillion won. At first glance, you may think that the potential of South Korea's online retail market is exploding, but it is actually due to the low-price temptation of local e-commerce platforms. At that time, local e-commerce giant 11Street launched the "9900 won store" section, which mainly provided consumers with daily necessities under 10,000 won; TMON also launched the same section - "10,000 won happiness", with a wide range of product categories. Excellent value for money. Then in October, both stores saw huge sales growth. It can be seen that the shopping habits of Korean consumers have undergone earth-shaking changes. But in any case, this retail market is still full of vitality. As the online retail market further develops, Koreans will shop online more frequently.