Convenience stores in Korea are reinventing themselves as multipurpose lifestyle shops. As the market becomes oversaturated, convenience store chains are establishing specialized branches tailored to neighborhoods and customer groups and offering prize draws, running gear and K-beauty products.
GS25 said on Friday that it opened the industry’s first store dedicated to Ichiban Kuji, a Japanese prize-draw system in which every entry is guaranteed a prize. Customers pay for a ticket at a kiosk and receive a randomly selected item, such as merchandise or a collectible figure.
The company remodeled its Seomyeon Star branch in Busan to accomplish this feat. The first floor remains a regular convenience store, but the second now houses an Ichiban Kuji store. GS25 said that the format suits Seomyeon’s customer base, as the area is popular with younger shoppers and tourists.
The rise in international visitors has aided the expansion of specialized stores. Foreign customer spending at about 100 GS25 stores in coastal tourist destinations, including Haeundae in Busan, between July 1 and 19 jumped 136.9 percent compared to the same period last year, according to the company.
“We plan to open more Ichiban Kuji stores nationwide,” a GS25 representative said. “We expect them to encourage customers to spend more time at our branches and make additional purchases.”
The company also runs baseball- and football-themed stores that sell uniforms and merchandise.
Other convenience store chains are following suit. CU operates 21 stores geared toward runners in Seoul, Jeju Island and other regions. These branches are equipped with lockers, changing rooms and powder rooms for before and after a run.
A CU convenience store near the Han River in Seoul, geared toward runnersCU
They have proven especially effective at attracting younger shoppers. Customers in their 20s and 30s made 56.6 percent of purchases in June, and sales of apparel and protein drinks at such stores climbed 346 percent and 206.2 percent, respectively, from a year earlier.
CU has rolled out other specialized stores as well, including those focused on specific foods or snacks, such as instant noodles; K-pop merchandise; and K-beauty.
At 7-Eleven, first-quarter sales across 16 stores centered on K-food, K-fashion and K-beauty rose more than 15 percent from a year earlier.
Emart24 has also introduced dessert-focused stores, mainly in Seongsu-dong, eastern Seoul.
The trend reflects a slowdown in Korea’s convenience store industry. The country’s four major chains operated 53,266 stores last year, roughly 1,600 fewer than the year before, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.
As growth is increasingly harder to achieve through new openings alone, operators are shifting toward making existing stores more competitive.
“Since it has become difficult for chains to grow simply by increasing store count, they are launching specialized branches tailored to local and customer characteristics as a new source of competitiveness,” an industry source said.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
