Mongolia GS25 Surpasses 100 Stores... "Aiming for 500 Stores by 2025"

GS25 Surpasses 100 Stores in Mongolia After 16 Months
Targets Over 500 Stores by 2025 with Localization Strategy
100th Store GS25 Jamdgaraya Opens at Mongolian Landmark
"Will Serve as Flagship Store with Largest Scale and Product Assortment"

GS25 Mongolia's 100th store, 'GS25 Jamdgaraya Branch,' is bustling with local customers.

[Asia Economy Reporter Yuri Kim] GS25 announced on the 2nd that it has opened its 100th store in Mongolia. It has been 16 months since GS25 first entered Mongolia in May last year by partnering with Sean Kolai Group, the second-largest business group in Mongolia.

GS25 analyzed that the reason it was able to expand to 100 stores in Mongolia in a short period was due to a localization strategy that appropriately fused Mongolia’s food culture with the K-food craze, and by strengthening multifunctional capabilities through the use of convenience store infrastructure.

GS25’s private brand (PB) products, such as Cafe25, exported to Mongolia have emerged as popular local products. Through the convenience store infrastructure, GS25 also serves multifunctional roles, substituting for the lack of restaurants, cafes, and resting places in Mongolia.

GS25 aims to increase the number of GS25 stores in Mongolia to over 500 by 2025, focusing on strengthening operational experience and multifunctional infrastructure capabilities accumulated in Mongolia. They also unveiled a blueprint to become the number one convenience store locally.

The newly opened 100th GS25 store in Mongolia, "GS25 Jamdgaraya Store," is located at the entrance of Terelj National Park, a landmark of Mongolia. The strategy is to leverage the location, which attracts more than 300,000 domestic and international tourists annually, to develop it as a flagship store that promotes the GS25 brand and its strengths.

GS25 Jamdgaraya Store is a large-scale convenience store with approximately 300.8㎡ (about 91 pyeong) in size, selling more than 8,000 products, which is over three times the variety of a typical convenience store. Ready-to-eat foods, agricultural and marine products, and alcoholic beverages have been strengthened and placed prominently, and popular PB products at the level of domestic GS25 stores are available.

The ready-to-eat corner is the largest among all GS25 stores domestically and internationally. Key menu items include GS25’s PB coffee beans "Cafe25," which sparked the coffee bean craze in domestic convenience stores and was exported to Mongolia, and "Khoshor," a Mongolian traditional dumpling developed as a local convenience store product. Both menus record sales of about 20,000 units per day (based on total daily sales across all stores), ranking them among the most popular products in Mongolia.

Due to the location’s high tourist traffic, high demand for Grab & Go is expected, so the ready-to-eat corner and counter are placed closest to the entrance to greatly enhance purchasing convenience.

Another distinguishing feature of GS25 Jamdgaraya Store is its supermarket-level selection of agricultural and marine products and a wide variety of alcoholic beverages. This product group was strengthened considering Mongolian eating habits, which, similar to Koreans, especially prefer meat and alcohol at tourist sites. Sales data from GS25 stores located in similar domestic locations were analyzed and actively utilized in the product composition of GS25 Jamdgaraya Store. The display area for agricultural and marine products and alcoholic beverages was significantly expanded to about 40% of the total store area, which is comparable to the size of a general convenience store.

Additionally, GS25 paid particular attention to product differentiation by introducing popular fresh food menus such as lunch boxes and sandwiches from domestic GS25 stores interpreted in a local style, and by setting up exclusive shelves for popular PB products like Omori Kimchi Stew Ramen and Yours Pouch beverages.

Going forward, GS25 plans to introduce differentiated craft beers to GS25 stores in Mongolia to replicate the domestic convenience store alcohol craze locally. They also plan to develop GS25’s lifestyle services, such as quick commerce and half-price delivery, which have been successful in Korea, into forms suitable for the local market, thereby strengthening their role as contributors to the local community.

Meanwhile, GS25, which has grown into a leading franchise company maintaining the highest average sales per franchise store, entered Vietnam (186 stores) in 2018 and Mongolia (100 stores) in 2021 by leveraging its experience. It is preparing to open GS25 in Malaysia early next year in partnership with KK Group.

Jung Hee-kyung, head of GS25’s Overseas Business Team, said, "Despite the COVID-19 situation, Mongolia GS25 has achieved significant growth, fully demonstrating the strength of K-convenience stores," adding, "GS25 will serve as a bridgehead to promote Korean culture worldwide beyond just K-convenience stores."

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