Thanks to Masks, Gongyeong Shopping Ranks 1st in Brand Awareness Growth Among 7 Home Shopping Channels

KF80 summer masks sold by Gongyoung Shopping in June. Photo by Gongyoung Shopping

[Asia Economy Reporter Moon Hyewon] The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced that among the seven home shopping companies, Gongyoung Shopping showed the highest increase in brand awareness this year.

On the 6th, Gongyoung Shopping held a briefing on the '2020 Brand Awareness Survey Results' at the Government Seoul Office and revealed these findings.

According to a survey conducted by professional research firm Embrain on behalf of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, from June 2 to 9 this year, 1,000 men and women aged 25 to 65 nationwide (who had purchased from home shopping at least once in the past year) were surveyed regarding the awareness of seven domestic home shopping brands. Gongyoung Shopping's awareness rose to 84.7% this year, an increase of 8.9 percentage points from last year's 75.8%.

During the same period, the other brands (GS Home Shopping, CJ O Shopping, Hyundai Home Shopping, Lotte Home Shopping, Home&Shopping, NS Home Shopping) showed either no change or a slight decline in awareness.

Customers with purchase experience cited reasons for recommending Gongyoung Shopping such as ▲products available exclusively on the channel ▲trustworthiness ▲availability of local specialties and direct transaction products.

Gongyoung Shopping analyzed that the main factors for the increase in awareness were the designation as an official mask sales outlet and the promotion of contactless shopping due to the impact of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

From February 19 to March 5 this year, Gongyoung Shopping sold 2 million official masks over 16 days. This enabled them to attract 1.5 million new members in March alone, as consumers had to register as Gongyoung Shopping members before ordering masks. Considering that Gongyoung Shopping currently has a total of 16 million subscribers, this means that new customers equivalent to 10% of the total subscribers accumulated over the past five years since its launch joined in just 16 days.

With the spread of COVID-19 increasing contactless transactions, sales of daily necessities and food products surged sharply. Last month, orders for daily necessities such as masks and cleaning products increased by 345% compared to the same month last year, and food sales rose by 148% due to growing demand for ready meals and local agricultural, livestock, and marine products.

Tak Jinhee, Head of Digital Marketing at Gongyoung Shopping, said, "As a latecomer in TV home shopping, we have strived to build a unique brand for Gongyoung Shopping. We will leverage the strengths revealed in the brand awareness survey by actively utilizing 'mobile live commerce' and 'big data,' maintaining the lowest commission fees for win-win cooperation with SMEs, expanding sales channels to increase revenue, and strengthening customer service."