Convenience Store 'Wine Battle' Intensifies as Liquor 'Smart Order' Allowed

A customer is looking at wine at Emart24. (Photo by Emart24)

[Asia Economy Reporter Seungjin Lee] The National Tax Service has permitted retailers to sell alcoholic beverages via the 'smart order' method. As a result, competition for wine sales through smart orders is expected to intensify, especially among convenience store chains.

Starting from the 3rd of next month, smart orders for alcoholic beverages will be available. Similar to Starbucks' 'Siren Order,' this purchasing method allows customers to order and pay for alcohol through a smartphone application (app) and then visit the store to pick up their items directly.

The convenience store industry was the first to respond to this amendment. Upon the announcement of the National Tax Service's revised notification on the telecommunication sales of alcoholic beverages, convenience stores began reviewing the application of smart order services.

Currently, each convenience store operates its own mobile app, so it is known that implementing a smart order system poses little difficulty. Some convenience stores have already implemented smart order systems for food items such as lunch boxes, excluding alcoholic beverages.

The convenience store industry particularly expects that the implementation of smart orders for alcoholic beverages will directly impact wine sales. Soju and beer rarely run out of stock and tend to be purchased without special occasions. In contrast, wine is often bought to celebrate special days and generally has lower inventory levels.

Moreover, the introduction of smart orders is expected to accelerate the recent trend of convenience stores actively expanding wine sales. Since last year, convenience stores have launched wine reservation services, wine discount sales, and wine-purchasing exclusive memberships, entering into competition for wine sales.

In December last year, GS25 introduced 'Wine25,' a same-day wine reservation service. Stores that adopted this service saw wine sales increase by 355% within a month. Since this service only allows wine reservations and requires customers to visit the store to purchase, it is highly likely that a smart order service will be applied.

Emart24 piloted a wine O2O (online-to-offline) service at about 240 stores in January last year and expanded the service to approximately 740 stores this year. Additionally, they launched liquor-specialized stores handling around 80 types of wine, expanding wine sales so that last month, the sales composition ratio of wine in alcoholic beverages increased by 2.6 times.

Regarding this, a convenience store industry official explained, "Through smart orders, consumers can easily check the stock status of the alcoholic beverages they want, and the industry can prevent 'no-shows' where reservations are made but purchases are not completed." They added, "Coupled with the spread of the home drinking trend, we expect customer demand for wine to grow even more."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.