Gwangju Dong-gu Namgwangju Market Pioneers New Path with 'Online Platform'

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Traditional markets, which have been stagnant due to the impact of COVID-19, are pioneering new avenues in line with the With-Corona era.

According to Dong-gu, Gwangju Metropolitan City, Namgwangju Market was finally selected as a ‘Cultural Tourism Market’ in the ‘2021 Traditional Market and Shopping District Revitalization Support’ project contest hosted by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups in September, following its previous selection in March 2019.

Accordingly, following the previous project, a total budget of 1 billion KRW will be invested over two years starting next year to foster non-face-to-face commerce and provide advanced services.

The Namgwangju Market Cultural Tourism Market Development Project Group (hereinafter referred to as the Project Group) has been promoting ▲opening ‘Smart Stores’ ▲joining ‘Neighborhood Market Shopping’ ▲‘Live Commerce’ promotional events since October to support ‘online sales promotion.’

‘Smart Store,’ operated by the portal site Naver, is a blog-type one-stop shopping mall construction solution that anyone can easily create. It is a platform where individual sellers register products in their stores, expose these products on Knowledge Shopping, and receive brokerage fees.

Since last year, the Project Group has recruited hopeful stores, and four locations including Jamae Fisheries (fermented skate), Naju Fisheries (fermented skate), Tteokgalbi Bon-ga Deokine, and Ilho Trading Company (frozen seafood) have decided to open stores.

To strengthen the self-reliance of market merchants, the Project Group has been steadily operating a Merchant University since 2018. Since the 2nd of this month, they have been conducting the ‘2020 Smart Platform Specialized Education’ by inviting instructors from the Small Enterprise and Market Service, composed of university professors.

About 30 merchants are participating in this specialized education, which supports not only how to build smart platforms but also food photography for the site, storytelling for each store, and homepage construction for participating stores.

Following the Smart Store, the ‘Neighborhood Market Shopping’ service, which allows online ordering and delivery of traditional market food, will also be introduced.

About ten stores selling seafood and food, including Mokpo Fisheries, are participating. When consumers order desired products through the site, deliveries will be made quickly to households within a 2?3 km radius without delivery fees.

Stores participating in ‘Smart Store’ and ‘Neighborhood Market Shopping’ will begin full operation from the end of this month. The Project Group plans to gradually increase the number of participating stores from next year after monitoring progress.

Project Group Director Jang Bok-su said, “We hope this attempt will serve as a new stimulus for traditional markets and merchants, and that each specialized street in the market (such as the seafood street, gukbap street, etc.) will be reborn as a ‘core store.’” He added, “If successful cases continue to emerge, this will quickly spread not only to Namgwangju Market but throughout all traditional markets.”

Dong-gu Mayor Lim Taek said, “Since traditional markets have maintained face-to-face trading for a long time, initial settlement is important to transform into smart markets.” He added, “We will spare no support so that traditional markets can become not only the driving force of the local economy but also a representative cultural resource of Dong-gu.”

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