Among the new duty free shops, ‘Shilla iPark’ rang up KRW768.54 million in sales, followed by ‘Shinsegae Myeong-dong’ which had a turnover of KRW593.33 million.
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What are the total daily sales of the downtown duty free shops in Seoul, which had new duty free shops added to the list in 2015~2016? According to the Korea Customs Service data, analyzed by Korea Duty Free News, the ‘Main Store of Lotte DFS (Sogong-dong)’ in Myeong-dong was No. 1 with no equal in the field. Its daily average sales amounted to about KRW8,016.9 million. The second place went to ‘Shilla DFS Seoul,’ whose daily average sales amounted to KRW4,699.06 million.
The sales and shares were analyzed between January 2016 and July 2016. During this period, the new downtown duty free shops in Seoul began operations. So the performance of these new duty free shops was also examined. Of course, this analysis included ‘Lotte Duty Free Shop World Tower’ and SK Networks’ ‘Walker Hill Duty Free Shop,’ which shut down their business as they lost their license. As World Tower and Walker Hill Duty Free Shops lost their licenses during this period and had to shut down their business, however, their sales figures could not be regarded as normal. So their data was analyzed in a separate table.
Among the new duty free shops, the daily average sales of ‘Shilla iPark DFS’ were the highest at KRW768.54 million, followed by those of ‘Shinsegae DFS Myeong-dong’ at KRW593.33 million. What is noteworthy about the daily average sales of the new duty free shops is that ‘Shilla iPark DFS,’ which was opened on December 24, 2015, and ‘Shinsegae DFS Myeong-dong,’ which was opened on May 18, 2016, showed a very small difference.
Looking at the comparison of the new duty free shops more closely, the daily average sales of ‘Galleria Duty Free Shop 63,’ which was opened on December 28, 2015, were KRW485.91 million, less than those of ‘Shinsegae DFS Myeong-dong’ although ‘Galleria DFS 63’ had a longer business period than ‘Shinsegae DFS Myeong-dong.’ The daily average sales of ‘Doota DFS,’ which was opened at about the same time, were less than half of those of ‘Shinsegae DFS Myeong-dong,’ only 47.3% of the daily average sales of Shinsegae DFS. In terms of sales, among the new duty free shops, only ‘Shinsegae DFS’ is doing very well. Looking only at the sales, excluding various factors like the location and brands, the new duty free shops, which were opened in a similar period, showed clearly different levels of sales.
The data provided by Korea Customs Service also includes data on ‘Lotte DFS World Tower’ and SK Networks’ ‘Walker Hill DFS,’ which lost their licenses during the license screening in November 2015. The daily average sales of ‘Lotte DFS World Tower,’ which shut down its business on June 30, were KRW1,908.24 million during this period. If it was not shut down, it might have been ranked 3rd among downtown duty free shops in Seoul in terms of sales (3rd nationwide too).
Meanwhile, the same data can be compared by ‘shop’ and by ‘the share of downtown duty free shops in Seoul vs all duty free shops in the country.’ For starters, examining the data by shop, which duty free shop had the best sales performance in the country? The first place goes to the ‘Main Store of Lotte DFS’ in Myeong-dong. From January 2016 to July 2016, its sales amounted to KRW1,707.6 billion, accounting for 25.1% of the total sales of all duty free shops in Korea during the same period. The second place goes to Hotel Shilla’s ‘Shilla DFS Seoul.’ It rang up KRW1.9 trillion in sales during the same period, accounting for 14.7% of the total sales of all duty free shops in Korea.
Analyzing the share of the downtown duty free shops in Seoul vs all duty free shops in the country, for 7 months from January 2015 to July 2016, the total sales of downtown duty free shop in Seoul were KRW3,673 billion, accounting for 54% of the total sales of 51 duty free shops sales in the country. The calculation of the sales figure include those of Lotte DFS World Tower and Walker Hill DFS which lost their licenses.
