Experiential commerce is emerging as a new growth channel for South Korea's retail industry, with differentiated experience offerings drawing in new customers and lifting sales.
CJ ONSTYLE, a traditional home shopping operator, held a summer Black Friday event in July called "Come On BLF" that combined a concert by the hip-hop duo Dynamic Duo with live commerce, according to industry sources on the 3rd. Rather than simply introducing products in a conventional broadcast, the company folded commerce into a program where customers enjoyed a performance and interacted with the artists in real time.
Those experiential elements translated into wider customer traffic. During the Come On BLF event, CJ ONSTYLE's daily active users rose 46%, while new mobile customers increased about 30%. By leading with a performance as content rather than product sales alone, the platform pulled in new customers as well as existing ones.
Lotte Homeshopping is also pairing offline experiences with commerce to boost sales. In April, the company hosted a customer invitation program called "Yuyu Jajeok Hiheenakrak," showcasing products whose scents and flavors customers could sample in person. The attempt used offline experiences to convey product qualities that are difficult to communicate through a home shopping broadcast alone.
The hands-on experience led to purchases. Orders for the roughly 20 brands that took part rose about 40% immediately after the pop-up closed. Sales gains were most pronounced for products whose qualities, such as taste and scent, are easier to grasp only through direct experience. Seolarae's balloon flower root extract sold an additional 2,600 sets compared with the period before the pop-up, while orders for Aromatica rose 50% right after the event.
As demand grows for pop-ups and experience-based content, the expansion of the experiential commerce market is spreading to related industries. Sweet Spot, a company specializing in pop-up stores, posted revenue of 28.1 billion won last year and swung to an operating profit for the first time. It recently selected KB Securities as underwriter and began preparing for an initial public offering.
