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E-commerce platforms are building growth with brick-and-mortar offline expansions

Published: 28 Apr. 2026, 13:51 Updated: 28 Apr. 2026, 17:18

The second floor at the Musinsa Megastore Seongsu in Seongdong District, southern Seoul, showing its beauty range [JOONGANG ILBO]

Korean vertical e-commerce platforms are moving back to brick-and-mortar, opening full-fledged stores and pop-up spaces to turn online shopping into an in-person brand experience.

Major fashion e-commerce platform Musinsa's new mega store in Seongsu is the latest example of that shift. Vertical e-commerce refers to services focused on specific customer segments or product categories.

Located in one of Seoul’s most youthful neighborhoods, Seongsu, Musinsa Megastore Seongsu was fully ready to greet its customers on Thursday, just one day before its official opening. Covering 6,612 square meters (71,170 square feet) over its five-story space, the store has become the largest offline retail space for the brand.

The company is using its largest brick-and-mortar store not just to sell clothes and accessories, but to let its shoppers try products that had previously been sold only online and to strengthen its brand identity. Moving beyond the traditional realm of Musinsa, the multi-floor site houses spaces for food and beverage offerings, wash stations with beauty products and even a coin noraebang (singing booth) punningly named Mu-sing-sa.

The fourth floor of the Musinsa Megastore Seongsu focusing on a shoe store alongside its food and beverage offering section [JOONGANG ILBO]

“We want to let customers experience products by themselves that were previously available only through online channels, and hope to strengthen the brand experience through content available exclusively in [this] store,” a Musinsa representative said.

Musinsa Beauty's first permanent brick-and-mortar store also opened inside the Seongsu megastore as part of an omnichannel strategy, linking online curation and offline experiences — a departure from its original strategy of only running pop-up stores for beauty products.

“We are showcasing around 700 beauty brands, which include online-only brands that had no physical stores,” Musinsa's offline commerce manager Kwon A-young said.

"Some brands were exclusive to Musinsa [online], so customers had little chance to try out the products before purchasing them, and the brick-and-mortar store is expected to increase our connection with the customers."

Other vertical platforms are also increasingly stepping into the real world with brick-and-mortar stores.

Zigzag, a women’s fashion and beauty platform run by Kakao Style, held its first offline event in Seongsu last year, drawing about 15,000 visitors in three days. The pop-up event allowed customers to purchase items on the spot through its online platform.

Another platform that specializes in women's fashion, Ably, is also reportedly planning to open a permanent offline store within the year.

Ohouse's brick-and-mortar store in Jongno District, central Seoul, upon its opening in 2025 [NEWS1]

Lifestyle platform Ohouse secured its first brick-and-mortar location in Bukchon, Jongno District, Seoul, last year.

The space was designed as a showroom where consumers could directly experience furniture layouts and interior styling with products previously sold online.

"The goal was to give a sense of feeling to customers who could only see the furniture and interior furnishings online," an Onhouse spokesperson said. "While the space was largely oriented for exhibition and brand experience purposes, we have been testing on-site sales of some of the products, like lighting equipment."

Such vertical platforms have continued to grow in recent years, even as they step further into brick-and-mortar retail.

Musinsa posted record revenue of 1.47 trillion won ($991 million) last year, while Ably reported an annual operating revenue of 368.7 billion won, Ohouse at 321.5 billion and Kakao Style at 219.2 billion. All four also recorded double-digit growth from a year earlier.

The companies are choosing to expand into offline spaces to preserve growth and strengthen direct contact with shoppers, as consumer spending slows in the country.

Musinsa opened its first offline store, Musinsa Standard Hongdae, in 2021 and now operates about 75 stores nationwide, including stores in China.

Customers line up outside a Musinsa store in Shanghai, China on Feb. 20. [MUSINSA]

Experts say the strategy reflects an effort by online-first companies to stimulate consumer demand through offline expansion.

“As competition among vertical platforms is intensifying as the e-commerce market becomes saturated, each company’s ability to rally consumers has become more important than ever,” Kim Chang-ho, a professor of distribution marketing at Namseoul University, said.

“At a time when consumer sentiment has weakened during an economic downturn, offering offline experiences that embody a brand’s identity can not only attract new customers but also prevent existing customers from leaving.”

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.
BY NOH YU-RIM [[email protected]]