MZers fuel Disney Store's boom in S.Korea's offline market

The Disney Store has become one of the hottest spots within Hyundai Department Store branches since the department store operator has opened three official Disney stores over the past few months, with plans to open six more by next year.

More than 100,000 people have visited Disney’s first official store in South Korea located in Hyundai Department Store Pangyo since it opened 100 days ago.

Contrary to expectations, those in their 20s and 30s made up 71.0% of its customers, rather than families with young children.

“We believe that Disney enthusiasts, unable to purchase bulky Disney products at overseas Disney stores, are flocking to the store in Korea,” said a Hyundai Department Store official.

The first Disney Store in the country is located about 20 kilometers south of Seoul. It has raked in per-day sales of 600 million won ($442,000) on average, according to retail industry officials on Thursday.

It sells toys, lifestyle products and collectables themed on characters of Disney, Marvel and Star Wars, as well as those of the other brands under the Walt Disney Company.

The sales figure is remarkable for a brand store using character intellectual property (IP) rights, considering their average per-customer price of around 50,000 won, higher than that of other character goods.

It is also more than twice the average sales of other character brand stores in the branches of the Hyundai Department Store.

Disney stores also played a role as anchor tenant, or a core store that attracted customers to the department store.

The first Disney Store in South Korea has brought in an average of 500 people on weekdays; an average of 2,000 people on weekends; and an average of 30,000 people per month since its launch.

Buoyed by the robust sales, Hyundai Department Store opened the second Disney shop in Yeouido, central Seoul, in September, followed by the third outlet launched this week.

The third, 553 square-meter store, located within the Hyundai Premium Outlet Gimpo near Seoul, is more than twice the size of the first and second stores measuring 264 square meters and 222 square meters, respectively.

Next week, its fourth store is scheduled to open within Hyundai Department Store Cheonho in eastern Seoul.

It plans to open six more Disney stores in the country by next year.

CONTRAST WITH GLOBAL STRATEGY

Disney’s strong performance in South Korea’s offline retail market is in contrast to its online-focused strategies in many other countries. It has reduced the number of offline stores globally and shifted toward online sales following the onset of COVID-19.

It had once run a total of 1,440 stores in some 50 countries, but the number has shrunk to around 300.

Notwithstanding Disney Store’s shift to the online market, Hyundai had convinced the US entertainment titan that it could grow its character brand store into an IP business in Korea.

Disney is said to have even created a separate manual in order to open an official store in Korea.

Write to Young Chan Song at 0full@hankyung.com

Yeonhee Kim edited this article.