S.Korea’s petrochemical, steel firms open online shopping malls

South Korea’s petrochemical and steel companies, which mainly engage in business-to-business transactions, are opening or running a string of online shopping malls.

SK Geocentric on Monday said it launched the online platform SK Geopla.net to provide order status and shipping information on all products made and sold by the company in Korean and English. In addition, company staff are ready for offline orders by directly answering inquiries.

Starting with its flagship product polymers (plastic synthetic resin), SK Geocentric plans to eventually sell online high value-added products such as ethylene acrylic acid and ionomers.

Since December 2021, LG Chem Ltd. has sold all of its some 450 petrochemical products including post-consumer recycled plastic through its online mall LG Chem On. Early this year, Lotte Chemical Corp. opened its digital customer relationship management system LOCHEM Portal for its synthetic resin (poly) product clients.

In domestic steel, the nation’s Big Three of POSCO, Hyundai Steel, and Dongkuk Steel Mill Co. also run online shopping malls. The latter’s Steel Shop, the first such site opened among the trio, has sold its entire product lineup for nearly two years.

POSCO unified its online channel with eSTEEL4YOU, an e-commerce platform that spun off from POSCO International in April last year. A variety of steel products including those not from POSCO are sold online.

In May, Hyundai Steel also opened its online mall HCore Store.

“As e-commerce in steel grew rapidly in scale led by China, the domestic steel sector rushed to build online sales platforms for its products,” an industry source said. “We’re promoting direct non-contact sales online and raising buyer-centric convenience by making it easier for even small businesses to make purchases.”

Write to Mi-Sun Kang at misunny@hankyung.com