Ministry of SMEs and Startups Selects 7 Outstanding Stores in the 1st Smart Store Contest

'Ditegging' exterior. Photo by Ministry of SMEs and Startups

[Asia Economy Reporter Moon Hyewon]The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced on the 16th that it held the '1st Smart Store Contest' targeting excellent smart stores nationwide and selected 7 outstanding stores (2 grand prize winners and 5 excellence awardees) out of 43 applicants.

At the awards ceremony held at Mapo Dream Square on the same day, Kang Seongcheon, Vice Minister of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, attended to present awards to the winners and encourage the related personnel. In his remarks, Vice Minister Kang said, "We appreciate the pioneering adoption of smart store technologies that have increased sales and new employment," adding, "This year, we plan to promote the establishment of 55 smart pilot shopping districts to support service improvement and management efficiency by introducing smart technologies to small business sites."

According to the Ministry, 'Ditteoking' in Daegu, selected as the grand prize winner, opened a chicken restaurant in March last year and introduced a frying robot in May, which reduced human risk during the cooking process and maintained consistent taste, causing a great response from customers. After the introduction, the number of customers tripled, monthly sales increased by 20 million KRW, and the number of employees grew from 2 to 4.

'Pizza Itali Ruwon City Branch' located in Incheon also opened in January this year and introduced serving robots and table orders, showcasing cleanliness. Orders increased more than threefold compared to the early days of opening, and sales quadrupled. The number of workers increased from 3 to 8. This store uses a 3D printer to allow customers to create toys or giveaways during waiting times, gaining great popularity among family customers and young people.

The selected stores received prize money of 3 million KRW for the grand prize and 1 million KRW for excellence awards respectively, and will be used as benchmarking targets for the smart store technology dissemination project promoted by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups starting this year, with nationwide publicity planned.

The Ministry plans to invest 10 billion KRW this year to disseminate smart technologies and smart orders to about 4,400 stores mainly in major shopping districts nationwide through the smart store technology dissemination project.

A Ministry official said, "We plan to disseminate smart store technologies to 100,000 stores nationwide over the next five years," adding, "The government will actively support expanding smart stores to improve the profit structure of small business owners and dramatically secure competitiveness."

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