The article says convenience stores in Seongsu and Myeongdong have changed a lot from before. Now, a convenience store is not just a place where you quickly buy things and leave. It is changing into a place that gives a new and different experience by changing products, space, and design together. One person even said they stayed in a convenience store for almost two hours. Behind this change are the growth of online shopping and stronger competition in offline retail. Fewer people go to offline stores for simple purchases, and instead, the value of experiences that can only be felt on site has become more important. Rather than continuing to increase the number of stores, the convenience store industry is focusing on a strategy that makes each visitor put more into the shopping basket. The article especially uses Seongsu and Myeongdong as examples. In Myeongdong stores, there are K-pop albums, light sticks, and K-beauty products, and in Seongsu stores, there are displays that encourage looking around and trying things. It also highlights zoning, which means dividing one store into sections by theme. Research data shows that after increasing to about 55 thousand in 2023, the total number of stores from the 4 major companies decreased in 2024, so there is an interpretation that the convenience store market has entered a stage of reorganization rather than quantitative expansion. These specialized strategies are introduced as changes to survive in such a saturated market.
원문 보기Why convenience stores in Seongsu and Myeongdong look different
The key point of this news is simple. Convenience stores are no longer a business that sells only 'convenience'. In the past, they were places near home where you quickly bought water, triangle kimbap, or toilet paper. But now, some stores in Seongsu and Myeongdong are becoming spaces that also sell 'what you can look at and experience.'
Why is this happening? As online shopping grows, offline stores need to create 'a reason to go there on purpose.' Price comparison and repeat purchases can be finished on a phone. So the role of offline stores changes toward immediacy (the value of buying now and using now), discoverability (the experience of finding unexpected products), and experiential value (the fun given by the space itself).
If you understand this, you will not see the Seongsu and Myeongdong cases as just a trend article. The change happening now is not really a story about 'convenience stores trying to look stylish.' It is closer to a process of changing the definition of the business itself to survive in a saturated market.
The main competition is moving from expanding the number of stores to sales per store and experience design.
It is easier to understand if you see Seongsu and Myeongdong as test spaces that show that change in the most visible way.
How did Korean convenience stores change from 'a place to buy for a moment' to 'a place to stay'?
The specialized stores of today did not appear suddenly. They are the result of several role changes building up step by step.
Stage 1: In the late 1980s, they started as 'expensive small neighborhood shops'
Many people see the opening of Seven Eleven Olympic Branch in 1989 as the real starting point of the industry. Early convenience stores were not places for cheap, long grocery shopping. They were urban-style stores where you quickly bought urgent items late at night.
Stage 2: In the 1990s, they became popular as 'a space for food you eat right away'
As instant foods like cup ramen, kimbap, and triangle kimbap became stronger, convenience stores grew from simple retail shops into places where people could quickly solve one meal. From this period, the feeling of 'staying for a short time' started to appear.
Stage 3: 2000s–2010s, expanding into a daily life platform
As services like parcel delivery, utility bill payment, ATM, and food delivery were added, convenience stores became more than shops for daily necessities and turned into daily life platforms. A daily life platform means a base where many everyday functions are gathered in one place.
Stage 4: Since the mid-2010s, people had a reason to stay
With changes like the lunchbox boom, cafe-style seats, and duplex-style stores, convenience stores became more than places to stop by briefly and turned into spaces where people could stay a little longer. From here, the staying experience became just as important as the product mix.
Stage 5: 2020s, evolving into tourism and experience-style stores
In shopping areas with a clear character, like Seongsu and Myeongdong, elements like ramen cooking spaces, K-food, desserts, collaboration goods, and more are combined. Now convenience stores are not only about convenience near home, but have entered a stage of aiming to become content spaces that people visit on purpose.
What is different between early convenience stores, daily life platform stores, and experience-style stores?
Even though they are all convenience stores, the value they sell has changed over time. If you look at this table, you can get a sense of which stage the news is talking about now.
| Category | Early convenience store | Daily life platform convenience store | Experience-style convenience store |
|---|---|---|---|
| Main role | A place that quickly sells urgent items | A place that handles everyday things like meals, parcel delivery, and finance | A space that also sells looking around, experiences, and discovery |
| Main products and services | Drinks, snacks, cigarettes, daily necessities | Lunchboxes, PB, parcel delivery, ATM, utility bills | K-food, desserts, collaboration goods, ramen experience, beauty |
| Time spent staying | Very short | Stay briefly while taking care of needed tasks | It can become longer while taking photos and looking around |
| Store design goal | Fast purchase | Expanding daily convenience | Creating reasons to visit and raising spending per customer |
As online grows, how will the role of offline convenience stores change?
If you understand this comparison, it becomes much easier to see why offline starts selling experiences.
| Category | Online shopping | |
|---|---|---|
| What they do well | Price comparison, stock search, repeat purchases | |
Offline convenience stores Instant purchase, instant consumption, unexpected discovery | ||
| Reason to visit | Buy cheaply and conveniently | |
| Brand touchpoint | Focused on screens and reviews | |
| Way of competition | Search results and price competition | |
The number of convenience stores in Korea reached its peak and started to go down
If you move your mouse over the dots, you can see the numbers. Looking at confirmed numbers, after around 55 thousand stores in 2023, the total number of stores of the 4 major companies started to decrease in 2024.
Why people call it restructuring now, not just simple saturation
Saturation and restructuring may look similar, but they mean different things. Saturation is the state of having increased a lot, and restructuring is the process where the structure changes after that.
| Category | Saturation signal | Restructuring signal |
|---|---|---|
| Number of stores | Hard to increase more | Close low-efficiency stores and focus on key business areas |
| Sales strategy | Hard to hold on with quantity alone | Moving toward raising sales at existing stores and increasing average spending per customer |
| Competition structure | Store opening competition slows down | A stronger two-leader system centered on CU and GS25, together with better efficiency |
| Meaning | The market limit is showing | The line between stores that survive and stores that disappear is becoming clearer |
Why is average spending per customer more important than the number of stores now?
Average spending per customer is the average amount one customer spends in one visit. This number shows where the industry is trying to protect its profits.
| Item | Past: expanding the number of stores | |
|---|---|---|
| Growth method | Open many stores to expand size | |
Now: focused on average spending per customer and sales per store Even if opening fewer, sell better at each store | ||
| Key indicators | Total number of stores, net increase in stores | |
| Methods that work well | Opening nearby stores, securing business areas first | |
| Why did it change? | In the market growth period, volume itself was power | |
Why Myeongdong and Seongsu in particular
Even with the same convenience store brand, if the trade area is different, the target customers and products are different too. If you look at this difference, you can understand why specialty stores are a trade-area-focused strategy.
| Item | Myeongdong-style store | Seongsu-style store |
|---|---|---|
| Core customers | Foreign tourists, fast souvenir-buying demand | Trend-seeking visitors, mixed local and tourist demand |
| Visit purpose | Buy and experience K-food and K-beauty all at once | Look around and try new products and spaces |
| Main products | Ramen, snacks, cheering sticks, albums, beauty items, gift-style products | Desserts, collaboration products, pop-up-style displays, stylish PB |
| Store presentation | Multilingual convenience, tourist flow, focused on immediate purchase | Photo-friendly displays, themed spaces, discovery-style flow |
Does zoning really make people stay longer
Zoning is a way of dividing a store into themed areas. The name may sound difficult, but really it is closer to a design that helps people see more in a short time.
| Question | What research and practice say | |
|---|---|---|
| Is the goal to increase dwell time | Partly yes, but the key is wider product exposure and more chances for extra purchases | |
Things to watch out for when reading Convenience stores are originally based on quick purpose-driven shopping, so they are not the same as supermarkets | ||
| Why does it work | Traffic flow design, placement around the checkout, and placing complementary items nearby can trigger impulse buying | |
| If people stay longer, do they always buy more? | It is hard to say that for sure | |
So how should we read this news?
If you read the special convenience stores in Seongsu and Myeongdong only as a light trend article saying, ‘Convenience stores are fun these days,’ then you only understood half of it. What matters more is that this is a sign that the Korean convenience store industry is shifting its focus from quantitative expansion to qualitative reorganization.
Now, the competitiveness of convenience stores depends less on how many more stores they open, and more on what kind of experience they design, for whom, and in which commercial area. In Myeongdong, they make it easy for tourists to buy and enjoy things right away, and in Seongsu, they give people the fun of browsing and discovering. That is why, even within the same brand, stores are increasingly becoming different like ‘themed sections of a small department store.’
So the next time you see similar news, you can read it like this. First, which commercial area is this store targeting? Second, what are they using to raise the average spending per customer? Third, what kind of experience did they add that online cannot give? If you look at just these three things, you can judge much more clearly whether that convenience store is just a simple unusual store, or an important example of a change in the industry structure.
It is better to read specialized convenience stores not as an issue of trendy products, but as a structural strategy to increase value per store in a saturated market.
If you understand this, in the next news you will be able to interpret for yourself, ‘Why this commercial area, and why this product?’
We will tell you how to live in Korea
Please give lots of love to gltr life