When Everyone Shouts Online... Homeplus Goes 'All~Line'

President Lee Je-hoon's Store Focus
Electric Vehicle Charging Stations and Futsal Park
Ordering Differentiated Spaces, Not Shopping
Using Stores as Logistics Centers

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Chun-han] As Shinsegae Emart acquires eBay Korea and launches an all-out battle in the e-commerce market, Lee Je-hoon, president of Homeplus, is raising his voice to strengthen offline competitiveness. While competitors are focusing all their efforts on expanding e-commerce, Homeplus aims to overcome the waves of distribution upheaval by concentrating on expanding store infrastructure.

◆ Emphasizing ‘Offline’ from the First Day of Work = According to Homeplus on the 6th, since his inauguration, President Lee has been continuing team-level work reports for two months. The recurring theme he emphasizes during these reports with each team is ‘differentiation of offline stores.’ On his first day at work, instead of going to the head office office, he visited the Homeplus Special Mokdong store to listen to the voices of on-site employees. Ultimately, President Lee’s plan is that future competitiveness in the distribution market lies in offline stores.

In particular, President Lee insists that large marts should be transformed into spaces for differentiated experiences rather than just shopping. This initiative began with the expansion of electric vehicle charging stations. Homeplus currently operates 128 electric vehicle chargers across 96 stores. They plan to increase this to about 2,000 chargers at all stores by 2023. By installing electric vehicle charging stations in large mart parking lots, they intend to provide customers with reasons to visit large marts. Homeplus also introduced the first mid-speed charger (17.6 kW/h) among large marts. The mid-speed charger takes about two hours to fully charge an electric vehicle.

They are also expanding various lifestyle convenience facilities such as 12 ‘Futsal Parks’ operated nationwide, personal storage service ‘The Storage,’ unmanned used car appraisal, and used phone purchase services. The number of Futsal Park users reaches approximately 1.1 million annually.

They are also renovating aging stores. By the end of this year, they will convert 10 stores nationwide into Homeplus Special stores. By the end of July, Wonju and Incheon Cheongna stores will be converted and opened as Homeplus Special stores, and from then until the end of the year, 1 to 3 stores will be sequentially converted each month. Homeplus Special is a new concept distribution model where customers can purchase everything from small-sized products to large-sized products handled in warehouse-style discount stores all at once.

◆ Logistics Centers in Stores, Accelerated Renewal = The e-commerce response strategy is also being newly structured based on offline stores. Instead of building large logistics centers that require huge investment costs, existing stores are utilized as online logistics centers. Currently, 123 large stores and 253 Express stores have small-scale urban logistics center functions, and same-day delivery rates for large stores have been increased to 80%.

In his inaugural speech, President Lee stated, "We will revive offline competitiveness and strengthen online business to create an ‘All-line (Offline + Online)’ shopping environment." The pressure to improve performance is significant. In the 2020 fiscal year, Homeplus’s sales decreased by 4.6% compared to the previous year, and operating profit dropped by 41.8%. This year is crucial to find a turning point. A Homeplus official said, "Since the clear differentiator from e-commerce companies is offline stores, we plan to accelerate strengthening store-centered competitiveness."

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