"Over 7,000 Confirmed Cases Ahead of Year-End Surge"... Distribution Industry on Alert

Advance Pre-Order for Large Mart Seollal Gift Sets
Strengthening Online Marketing Instead of Offline Customer Attraction Events

The government will limit the maximum number of private gatherings to 6 people in the metropolitan area and 8 people in non-metropolitan areas for four weeks starting next week to control the rapidly spreading COVID-19 outbreak since the start of "daily recovery." In addition, the scope of facilities subject to the vaccine pass will be expanded to all indoor multi-use facilities such as restaurants, cafes, academies, and PC rooms, and from February next year, the vaccine pass will also apply to adolescents aged 12 to 18. The photo shows citizens walking at COEX in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, on the 3rd. Photo by Kim Hyunmin kimhyun81@

The number of COVID-19 confirmed cases has been hitting record highs daily, and with the 'Omicron' variant landing in Korea, the distribution industry is closely monitoring the situation by strengthening quarantine measures and online marketing.

On the 8th, Lotte Mart announced that it would start pre-order sales of Lunar New Year gift sets four days earlier than last year. As the COVID-19 situation worsened, they targeted non-face-to-face customer demand early on. According to Lotte Mart, the proportion of pre-order sales for Lunar New Year gift sets increased from 39.7% in 2019 to 51.9% this year.

Lotte On is also holding an event offering up to 20% discounts on popular gift items from Lotte Department Store. As year-end gatherings were repeatedly canceled and the number of users of the 'Gift Sending' service, which allows sending gifts without knowing the recipient's address, surged recently, the department store started discount sales of popular products.

Major department stores are either temporarily canceling or scaling down various sales events prepared for Christmas, year-end, and New Year. A department store official said, "Due to the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting revenge consumption, demand for luxury goods and high-priced padded jackets continues, so there is no immediate concern about a sales hit." However, they added, "Starting next week, we plan to expand pre-orders for Lunar New Year gift sets through online and phone orders, and offline department store events will be quickly adapted by linking with online promotions."

The duty-free shops, which had been buoyed by expectations for the resumption of overseas travel along with the phased return to normal life (With COVID), are now facing a sharp drop in sales due to the spread of Omicron and the implementation of a ten-day self-quarantine measure. In September, domestic duty-free sales reached 1.7 trillion won, marking the highest level this year, but sales fell by 8.1% in October. Due to recent travel cancellations, damage is inevitable in early next year as well.

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