Home&Shopping Strengthens Role as 'SME Incubator'

One-stop Support from 1:1 MD Consultation to Sales

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Cheol-hyun] Home&Shopping announced on the 3rd that it is strengthening its role as an incubator for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by providing one-stop support from discovering excellent SMEs to store entry and sales.

Home&Shopping, together with the Korea Federation of SMEs, held the 'TV Home Shopping Broadcast Entry Support Project MD Consultation Meeting' on the 27th of last month. At this consultation meeting, more than 30 SMEs attended and increased their understanding of home shopping distribution through one-on-one consultations with Home&Shopping merchandisers (MD), and received consulting related to store entry.

Home&Shopping plans to select 15 companies from the SMEs that attended the consultation meeting by comprehensively evaluating broadcast suitability and product competitiveness. The finally selected products will be launched on TV home shopping after going through product development and broadcast preparation processes.

To discover excellent local SMEs, Home&Shopping holds 'MD Consultation Meetings' every year from Seoul to Jeju, visiting major metropolitan cities and provinces. Last year, a total of 80 consultation meetings were held in 15 metropolitan cities and provinces. Separate consultations were also conducted for SMEs located in Daegu and Gyeongbuk, which faced difficulties securing sales channels due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as for companies entering department stores and duty-free shops.

Excellent local products discovered at the MD Consultation Meetings are given opportunities to enter TV home shopping through Home&Shopping's representative sales support program, 'Ilsacheonri.' Ilsacheonri, which started with the launch of Home&Shopping, has expanded its business scale every year and introduced more than 850 SME products to consumers. It has received favorable reviews by offering low sales commission rates to local SMEs struggling to secure sales distribution networks. The number of products transitioning to regular broadcasts based on consumer response is gradually increasing. About 20 products launched last year, including Cham Food Farm pork large intestines, Hamyang lotus leaf rice, and Hongcheon glutinous corn porridge, are preparing for regular broadcasts.

Kim Ok-chan, CEO of Home&Shopping, said, "Home&Shopping has consistently strived to realize the founding purpose of 'coexistence with SMEs' by supporting SMEs struggling to secure sales channels in developing their sales routes," adding, "We will continue to spare no support so that our SME partners can improve their sales through Home&Shopping's sales support projects."

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