Smart Technology Adoption in Dongjak-gu Traditional Markets

Ministry of SMEs and Startups Selects Seongdae Traditional Market as '2020 Smart Pilot Shopping District'... Secures Over 200 Million KRW in Project Funds... Supports 35 Stores with Smart Technologies for Management Efficiency and 60 Stores with Smart Order for Contactless Payment

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Jong-il] Dongjak-gu (Mayor Lee Chang-woo) was finally selected on the 17th in the Ministry of SMEs and Startups (hereinafter referred to as the Ministry) '2020 Smart Pilot Shopping District' contest and will introduce smart technology to Seongdae Traditional Market.

While online sales are showing growth due to the spread of untact consumption culture caused by the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, the crisis for offline self-employed business owners is intensifying.

This Ministry contest was conducted targeting shopping districts with more than 60 stores densely concentrated and organized nationwide to actively introduce smart technology in line with the non-face-to-face consumption trend and strengthen the competitiveness of small business owners. ‘Seongdae Traditional Market’ applied and was finally selected.

The project will proceed in the fields of smart technology for service improvement such as smart mirrors and serving robots according to the type and characteristics of small business owners, and smart order fields that enable non-face-to-face ordering and payment systems such as mobile reservation, ordering, and payment.

The total project cost is 196 million KRW, and the district plans to select and support 35 stores with 5 million KRW each for smart technology stores and 60 stores with 350,000 KRW each for smart order stores.

Also, on the 18th, Sangdo 4-dong area was selected in the ‘Neighborhood Commercial Area Foundation Project Contest’ promoted by Seoul City to protect and foster neighborhood commercial areas closely related to residents' lives amid intensifying competition from large corporations, franchises, and online businesses, securing a project budget of 70 million KRW.

The Sangdo 4-dong area is an alley commercial district composed of neighborhood stores accessible on foot. The district will operate a ‘Promotion Committee’ consisting of residents, merchants, and local organizations until February next year to discover ‘community stores’ that provide convenient services for residents such as secure parcel lockers for single-person households and storybook sharing boxes.

The district plans to actively support the establishment of business plans according to various local organizations and resident demands to prepare for the performance evaluation of Seoul City’s ‘Neighborhood Commercial Area Foundation Project’ scheduled for February next year and to be selected for the ‘Neighborhood Commercial Area Development Project’ that supports up to 3 billion KRW over three years.

Kim Jung-won, head of the Economic Promotion Division, said, “With this contest selection, we will do our best to revitalize the local economy, which has been depressed due to the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, by activating local markets and alley commercial areas,” and added, “We also ask residents to actively participate in campaigns for local economic revitalization such as the district-wide good consumption movement and traditional market days.”

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