3RD QUARTER, 2017
World News
More convenience
stores opening despite
slackening profits
The number of convenience stores in South Korea
is on the rise, and is likely to continue to increase
despite slackening profits from an overcrowded
market, industry watchers said.
South Korea had 34,376 such stores as of the end of last year. With
the country’s population counted at approximately 50.12 million, it
translates into one store per 1,491 people.
This is 1.5 times more than neighboring Japan, where the industry
took root long before South Korea. Japan has one store for every
2,226 people
CU had the most stores with 11,949, followed by GS25 with 11,911.
7-Eleven had 8,944, and Ministop 2,401. E-mart 24 counted 2,247
shops.
South Korea’s first convenience store, 7-Eleven, opened in May
1989 in southern Seoul. Despite the numeric boom, profits at the convenience stores are
shrinking. At GS Retail, the operator of GS25, for example, second-
quarter operational profit fell 21.7% to 53.1 billion won ($46.99
million).
It has now replaced department stores and giant retailers as
the place to shop as the country’s society ages and one-person
households replace big families. More store openings are expected, nevertheless, with many
neighborhood supermarket owners wanting to switch their
business to convenience stores.
Data showed that industry leaders continued to increase their size,
opening more than 3,000 new stores this year up to last month. Industry observers expect this development will cause the number
of new convenience stores to go up for another four to five years.
Retail in Asia, 8/10/2017
QR-code payments could dominate mobile payments – report
“Today that consumer is predominantly Chinese, but in year we
could also be looking at Indians, Indonesians, Japanese and
Koreans, who are already all following the Chinese trajectory,” she
added.
“The rapid adoption of mobile payments by Chinese consumers
domestically is well known, but not as much how they are using
them abroad,” says Kapronasia director Zennon Kapron.
The 2017 Mobile Payment Survey: Chinese Consumers Abroad
investigates how mobile payments methods such as Alipay and
WeChat Pay are shaping Chinese consumer expectations toward
shopping outside of China. It also investigates global merchant
preparation for this phenomenon.
Key findings say that nearly half of the consumers surveyed made
between 10 and 30% of their overseas shopping purchases with
QR-code mobile payment methods; one-third paid for more than
half their purchases in China with mobile.
QR-code payments have the potential to replace
any other form of mobile payment according to
new research by mobile payments specialist
Cancan and Asia-based financial research company
Kapronasia which surveyed more than 1,000
Chinese consumers and 60 decision-makers from
global merchant companies.
“Alipay and WeChat Pay, both based on QR code technology, are
already dwarfing their Western counterparts tenfold with 750
million active users between them,” says Cancan MD Candice Koo.
She said that global merchants need to meet shoppers’
expectations regarding mobile payments.
Mainland Chinese consumers expect to spend more with mobile
payments this year and next when travelling abroad, overriding the
use of cash or credit cards.
Likewise, fashion and cosmetics/skincare products are the
categories most likely to attract mobile payment purchases.
The study also says that more than a third of merchants who accept
mobile payments say this payment method contributes to at least
3% of their global sales, with some merchants experiencing a
Inside Retail Philippines, 8/2/2017
share as high as 25%.
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