South Korean retailers are moving beyond simply displaying and selling products, expanding into content commerce built around video, variety shows, live concerts and short-form clips. Retail platforms are now producing videos themselves or combining their offerings with intellectual property from variety shows and performances. The strategy is to draw shoppers in naturally through content.
Coupang plans to begin producing its own short-form content introducing sellers' products next month, according to the retail industry on the 15th. The company has so far supported the distribution of content created by influencers and other Coupang Partners members, expanding product sales tied to short-form clips. From October, it will extend its business beyond distribution into production.
Home shopping companies have moved earlier on video content. GS Shop launched Shortpick, the industry's first short-form service, in late 2023 and has steadily refined the combination of video and commerce. In the early days, a single staff member produced an average of six short-form clips a day, but after artificial intelligence was introduced last October, output rose to as many as 15 a day. As of June this year, GS Shop had more than 1,700 active Shortpick clips.
Lotte Homeshopping is also widening customer touchpoints through Shopping (Shopping), a short-form service launched in 2024. The company had selected major home shopping broadcasts and hit products, reworking 60-minute programs into roughly 30-second highlight clips, but has recently expanded into brand content and influencer viral videos. Using AI technology, it has also increased monthly short-form output more than 30-fold from previous levels.
Results are showing. Product orders through Shopping from January to August this year rose fourfold from a year earlier. The share of customers in their 20s and 30s was about 10% higher than for TV home shopping, indicating active use by younger shoppers. "Customers are used to discovering and buying products through short videos, and making the content more convenient and engaging to match that behavior was the key," a Lotte Homeshopping official said.
CJ Onstyle is trying to differentiate itself with variety-style content such as live performances. The company produces concert and variety content in collaboration with figures including hip-hop duo Dynamic Duo and speaker Kim Chang-ok, then reworks it into short-form clips to lift both customer traffic and product sales. Mobile products ordered through short-form clips on CJ Onstyle topped 3 million in the first half of this year. Unique visitors to its mobile app arriving via external short-form content rose 2.7-fold from a year earlier, while mobile order value climbed 3.2-fold.
Retailers are ramping up short-form content because it is easy to produce and conveys product features intuitively in a short time. That allows them to put products in front of consumers who had no plans to buy, creating new demand. Future Market Insights, a global market research firm, projects the shoppable short-video market will grow to $379.5 billion by 2036 from $65.2 billion last year.
"The strength of short-form is that it shows a product to customers who had no intention of buying and creates new demand," one retail industry official said. "Recently it has evolved beyond simply introducing products on video, using content IP and creators across K-pop, YouTube variety shows, characters, sports and film to build interest and convert it into purchases."
