Online Shopping Transactions Reach Record High of 37 Trillion KRW in Q2 This Year... Food Up, Culture & Leisure Down

Statistics Korea Announces June Online Shopping Trends

[Sejong=Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyunjung] The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was fully reflected in this year's Q2 online shopping transaction amount, which exceeded 37 trillion won, marking an all-time high. While purchases of food services and daily necessities surged, consumption in culture, leisure, and travel declined, causing the growth rate to slow down.

According to the 'June Online Shopping Trends' released by Statistics Korea on the 5th, the online shopping transaction amount in Q2 this year recorded 37.4617 trillion won, a 15.2% increase compared to the same period last year. This is the highest amount ever recorded, but the lowest growth rate on record.

By product category, purchases of culture and leisure services (-80.1%) and travel and transportation services (-62.2%) sharply decreased, while food services (73.8%), daily necessities (41.1%), and food and beverages (38.7%) showed significant increases. The composition ratio of online shopping transaction amounts by product category was led by home appliances, electronics, and communication devices (12.1%), food and beverages (11.9%), and clothing (10.3%). Yang Donghee, head of the Service Industry Trends Division at Statistics Korea, explained regarding the Q2 transaction amount, "Sectors such as travel, transportation, culture, and leisure performed poorly, but increases in food services, daily necessities, and food and beverages offset some of the decline."

Looking at the June performance, the transaction amount increased by 19.5% year-on-year to 12.6711 trillion won. Mobile shopping accounted for 8.4639 trillion won, up 22.8% from the previous year. Similar to the Q2 trend, culture and leisure services (-81.8%) and travel and transportation services (-57.8%) decreased, while food services (61.5%), daily necessities (48.9%), and food and beverages (39.4%) increased. Compared to the previous month, automobile and automobile accessories (82.6%) and travel and transportation services (9.2%) increased, whereas computers and peripherals (-9.4%) and food services (-5.2%) decreased.

The proportion of online shopping transaction amounts within total retail sales was 25.6%, up 0.3 percentage points from the previous month (25.3%). This proportion maintained around 22% until early this year, surged to the 27% range in February, and then stabilized around 25%. This means that if a consumer spent 1 million won on goods in a month, about 250,000 won was spent online.

Examining June's performance by operation type, online malls increased by 28.6% year-on-year to 9.162 trillion won, and on/offline hybrid malls increased by 0.9% to 3.5092 trillion won. The share of mobile shopping transaction amounts within total online shopping transaction amounts was 66.8%, up 1.8 percentage points from a year ago.

On the same day, Q2 online overseas direct sales and purchase trends were also announced. Q2 online overseas direct sales (reverse direct purchase) amounted to 1.2738 trillion won, a 5.3% decrease compared to the same period last year, marking the first decline since records began. Overseas direct purchases increased by 2.8% to 914.5 billion won.

Among online overseas direct sales, duty-free shop sales were 1.052 trillion won, down 9.1%. Compared to the previous quarter, overseas direct sales decreased by 16.5% (duty-free shop sales decreased by 18.9%), and overseas direct purchases decreased by 6.6%.

In particular, the scale of reverse direct purchases from China in Q2 was 1.0945 trillion won, down 4.0% year-on-year, while the U.S. was 63.2 billion won, up 40.9%. By product category, cosmetics accounted for 1.0753 trillion won, clothing and fashion-related products 87.7 billion won, and music, video, and instruments 44.7 billion won.

Based on overseas direct purchases, the U.S. recorded 383.2 billion won, down 10.3% from the previous year, while China surged 39.4% to 232.7 billion won. By product category, clothing and fashion-related products accounted for 327.7 billion won, food and beverages 257.9 billion won, and home appliances, electronics, and communication devices 73.8 billion won.

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