Naver Adds 'Smart Around' Shopping Feature

[Asia Economy Reporter Buaeri] Naver has added a shopping feature to its AI-based location recommendation service, ‘Smart Around’.

On the 12th, Naver announced that it established a shopping tab in Smart Around to provide information on nearby offline stores tailored to individual users’ preferences, aiming to support the growth of local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Smart Around recommends places worth visiting such as nearby restaurants and cafes based on the user’s location. It can be accessed by tapping ‘Near Me’ on the green circle (Green Dot) at the bottom of the Naver app. After adding the shopping tab, the number of SMEs exposed through Smart Around reaches about 45,000 per day.

The shopping tab displays information on offline stores selling products of potential interest, discount events, and new product launches around the user, based on their location, gender, age, and shopping preferences. For example, it recommends affordable clothing stores to women in their 20s who frequently purchase mid-priced clothing, and nearby sports brands to men in their 30s interested in sports equipment.

Users who want to shop offline but lack information about nearby stores can check the status of local stores in advance and visit them through the ‘Category-based Nearby Store Recommendations’ feature.

Choi Ji-hoon, leader of Naver Search CIC Local AI, said, “Recently, due to COVID-19, there has been an increasing tendency to prefer local consumption near residences rather than downtown commercial areas. Although it is a difficult time due to the impact of COVID-19, we will develop an advanced service based on AI research so that lesser-known SME stores nearby can be more precisely exposed to users with matching preferences through Smart Around.”

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