Emart Plans to Renovate 15 Stores This Year... "Reorganizing Stores from the Customer's Perspective"

Exterior view of Emart Byeollae branch.

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Chunhan] Emart announced on the 17th that following the renewal of nine stores last year, including Wolgye and Sindorim branches, it plans to renew and reopen more than 15 stores this year, starting with the Byeollae branch.

Emart opened its first renewed store of the year, Byeollae branch, on the 14th. Byeollae is an area where large-scale residential complexes are planned to be completed by 2023. Accordingly, the store was tailored to a commercial district with many customers in their 30s and 40s by incorporating Emart’s specialized lifestyle essentials stores such as Electromart, Toy Kingdom, At home, and Kids Days.

The grocery section also underwent significant changes. The fresh food section was transformed into a storytelling experiential store where customers can engage their five senses. Through diversification of varieties, unique fruits that can only be found at Emart were prepared, and the store, which was previously just a display space for product sales, was changed into a platform delivering interesting information from the customer’s perspective. Additionally, integrated liquor stores including wine and liqueur, No Brand Zone, and health functional product shops were introduced as various specialized food sections.

The reason Emart is expanding store renewals is to maximize the competitiveness of offline marts through spatial reconfiguration from the customer’s perspective. The key keyword of the renewal is rebirth from the customer’s viewpoint. By completely innovating existing stores and reorganizing spaces, Emart plans to provide customer-oriented services while transforming stores into places where customers want to visit and stay longer.

While online-based retailers emphasize low prices and convenience, Emart focused on experiential differentiation points unique to offline retailers through renewals. The focus was on providing spaces where customers can enjoy a pleasant shopping experience with their families beyond just product sales.

The biggest feature is that Emart strengthened its greatest strength, the grocery store, into an experiential, customer-tailored, and information-providing store that only offline stores can offer. Furthermore, the non-food sections were compressed, and the space secured here was used to introduce various tenant stores ranging from culture and entertainment to food and beverage and fashion brands.

The effects of the store renewal appeared immediately. Analyzing the performance of the Wolgye branch, which marked one year since its renewal opening, sales from June last year to last month increased by 57.2% compared to the same period the previous year. All nine stores renewed last year, including Chuncheon branch (68.4%) and Chilseong branch (42.5%), achieved double-digit sales growth compared to the previous year.

An Emart official said, “We are conducting store renewals in a direction that maximizes customer dwell time by strengthening experiential elements, which are the strengths of offline retailers, through data-based customer analysis,” adding, “Customers will be able to enjoy the pleasure of shopping at offline marts even more by visiting the renewed Emart.”

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