Nina Jobst
Research expert covering South Korea
Fashion e-commerce in South Korea - statistics & facts
The 2024 Summer Olympics saw the closing ceremony uniforms of the South Korean national team being designed not by a famous designer but by an e-commerce brand, a landmark achievement for the fashion e-commerce industry in South Korea. The interest in fashion in the country is high, especially in the capital, where Seoul Fashion Week is held biannually. This attentiveness to clothing and fashion trends, paired with a population that is so well-connected to the internet, easily explains the prosperity of the online fashion market in South Korea.
The biggest South Korean fashion e-commerce platforms
The design of the Olympics uniforms was developed by Musinsa Standard, the private casual wear brand of unicorn start-up Musinsa. Musinsa is one of the leading fashion e-commerce platforms in South Korea. What started as an online community has quickly developed into a fashion company with its financial figures showing an upwards trend. This development is not unique to just one platform. KREAM, which started out as a sneaker trading community, is now a general B2B platform, and ABLY, another unicorn company, went from a specialized fashion mall to a more generalized one. South Korean e-commerce platforms have refused to stay domestic as they ride the Korean wave of K-fashion popularity to expand to foreign markets. Others, such as Musinsa and W Concept, have further explored added offline retail methods.What is important for South Korean fashion e-commerce users?
For South Korean consumers, using e-commerce has become commonplace. As they value convenience, fast and flexible deliveries as well as easy access to shopping services are important. With smartphones, mobile shopping apps have become the most attainable channel for most users. Especially for younger people, who do most of their shopping using mobile devices, shopping apps have become a core shopping channel. Other crucial factors for South Korean internet shoppers include return and reimbursement policies. South Korean companies try to follow these expectations with fast deliveries, especially compared to overseas shopping, and by developing AI fitting rooms.The future of South Korean fashion e-commerce
The South Korean e-commerce fashion market is currently still in its growth phase, leaving opportunities for new market entrants. While South Korean companies are expanding overseas to develop their customer base, foreign shopping services, such as Chinese Alibaba or Temu, are finding their way into South Korea in turn. Aside from overseas competition, already established fashion companies might also have to respond to growing domestic competition by expanding their product range. In this process, they may lose their current advantage over overseas companies of fast deliveries and the sense of security that consumers currently enjoy when shopping with domestic providers.
