Hyundai Livart Launches Furniture Industry's First 'Next-Day Sofa Delivery Service'

All Sofas Delivered in the Seoul Metropolitan Area Arrive the Next Day When Purchased on Weekday Mornings

Livart Smart Work Center.
[Photo by Hyundai Livart]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Jong-hwa] Hyundai Livart is introducing a service that delivers sofa products purchased at both online and offline stores to customers' homes the next day, a first in the furniture industry.

Hyundai Livart, a total interior company affiliated with Hyundai Department Store Group, announced on the 12th that it will launch a 'Next Day Delivery' service for sofa products purchased at Livart stores nationwide (directly operated and dealerships) and the online mall 'Livart Mall.'

While some products such as storage cabinets or bookshelves have been delivered the next day in the domestic furniture industry, this is the first time that sofa products purchased are delivered the following day. With the introduction of the next day delivery service, the sofa delivery period, which previously took at least three days after purchase, has been shortened by about two days.

The next day delivery service operates only for all sofa products (30 types, 520 items) purchased on weekdays (Monday to Friday) mornings at Hyundai Livart's online and offline stores and delivered to the metropolitan area including Seoul, Gyeonggi, and Incheon. When a customer purchases a sofa in the morning on a weekday, a Hyundai Livart delivery driver contacts the customer directly to confirm the preferred delivery time (8 a.m. to 6 p.m.) for the next day before delivering the product.

However, if purchased on weekends or public holidays, delivery will be made two days after the order date, and if delivery is requested outside the metropolitan area, it will take three or more days as before. A Hyundai Livart official explained, "Considering the recent spread of the untact trend, customers' demand for fast delivery is increasing not only for food and clothing but also for furniture products, which led us to introduce the next day delivery service."

To operate the next day delivery service, Hyundai Livart established a separate sofa-only warehouse inside the 'Livart Smart Work Center (located in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province),' which began early operation in May this year. The warehouse area (about 17,000㎡) is the largest in the country and can store more than 5,000 four-seater sofas simultaneously.

In particular, a sofa-only dock (a facility that allows horizontal loading and unloading between the warehouse and vehicles) capable of loading products onto 20 delivery vehicles simultaneously was installed inside the warehouse, reducing the total sofa shipment time from an average of 10 hours per day to about 5 hours.

The number of personnel dedicated to sofa delivery has also increased by about 60% compared to before. The company expects that with the expansion of sofa storage space and the increase in delivery personnel, the volume of sofas that can be delivered will increase by about 75%, from 4,000 units per month to 7,000 units.

Hyundai Livart plans to expand the next day delivery service product range to include beds and living room cabinets in addition to sofa products early next year. Additionally, next month, the next day delivery service will be introduced for all furniture products of West Elm and Pottery Barn Kids brands from the U.S. premium home furnishing company Williams Sonoma.

A Hyundai Livart official said, "Once the production section of the Smart Work Center is fully operational in the first half of next year, the delivery period for kitchen furniture and built-in wardrobes, which currently takes more than seven days from order to installation, will be significantly shortened," adding, "We will continue to strengthen our B2C business competitiveness and enhance customer convenience through aggressive investment not only in logistics but also in core capabilities such as production."

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