12,000 Dongdaemun Wholesale Businesses and 132,000 Retail Businesses Nationwide Use
[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Cheolhyun] The transaction volume using 'Shinsang Market,' a platform connecting Dongdaemun fashion wholesale businesses with clothing retailers nationwide, has surpassed 1 trillion won. Delicious, the operator of Shinsang Market (CEO Kim Junho), announced on the 23rd that it has achieved a cumulative transaction volume of 1 trillion won in 6 years and 9 months since the pilot service began in July 2013.
Shinsang Market, which started its pilot service in July 2013, surpassed a cumulative transaction volume of 1 billion won by March of the following year solely through word of mouth, and exceeded 10 billion won in September 2016. Subsequently, it recorded 100 billion won in January 2017 and 500 billion won in October 2018.
During this period, the number of wholesale businesses using Shinsang Market increased 24-fold from about 500 in January 2014 to approximately 12,000 in March 2020. Retail businesses also grew more than 40 times from about 3,200 to 132,000 during the same period. Delicious estimates that 80% of all wholesale businesses and more than half of retail businesses use Shinsang Market.
Since attracting an investment of 16 billion won in April last year, Shinsang Market has aggressively started recruiting talent. They hired Jung Changhan, Chief Strategy Officer (CSO), formerly of global strategy consulting firm Bain & Company, and Lee Yonghwa, Chief Technology Officer (CTO), formerly of Dunamu, the operator of the cryptocurrency exchange Upbit. In March this year, they recruited Jang Hongseok, who was in charge of new service strategy and planning at Naver, as Chief Product Officer (CPO). When Delicious surpassed 1 billion won in transaction volume in 2014, there were only three co-founders, but now 120 employees work at Delicious to systematize Dongdaemun.
Through Shinsang Market, both wholesale and retail businesses have significantly expanded their trading partners. In January 2014, each wholesale business traded with only about 100 retail businesses, but by March this year, this number increased to around 1,100. During the same period, retail businesses increased the number of wholesale suppliers providing new products from 27 to 128.
Shinsang Market started by promoting new products from wholesale businesses to retailers and relaying retailers' orders to wholesalers. The business has since been upgraded with services such as 'Shinsang Choice,' where Shinsang Market MDs style, photograph, retouch, and upload products requested by wholesalers, and 'Shinsang Delivery,' where the Shinsang Market logistics team directly visits Dongdaemun wholesale stores to handle purchasing and delivery.
Delicious, which recently secured a strategic investment from Naver among a total of 25.5 billion won in funding, plans to focus on advancing its logistics system going forward. Kim Junho, CEO of Delicious, said, "Surpassing a cumulative transaction volume of 1 trillion won is the result of customers resonating with Delicious's founding mission to make customers' businesses easy and enjoyable through a systematized Dongdaemun," adding, "We will focus on enhancing customer convenience through logistics center advancement and diversification of payment methods."
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