CJ O Shopping, Influencer Commerce 'PickTheCell'... New Growth Engine 'Pick'

Expansion to Private Brand Products
"Considering MCN Partnerships"

[Asia Economy Reporter Cha Min-young] CJ ENM O Shopping Division announced on the 23rd that it will expand the operation of the influencer commerce platform 'Pick the Cell,' which has been running since December last year. They plan to increase external influencer sales and broaden the product range to establish it as a new growth engine in the mobile sector.

Influencer commerce refers to a form of commerce where influencers, who have built trust with customers through social network service (SNS) accounts such as Instagram, sell specific products exclusively for a limited period under special conditions.

Pick the Cell started sales around the end of December last year with products like ‘Swarovski’ jewelry and has conducted approximately 140 sales events to date. Recently, it has been broadcasting twice a month under the Pick the Cell title in collaboration with Naver’s ‘Shopping Live.’ Currently, about 50 influencers participate, including around 20 CJ ENM representative show hosts such as Lim Se-young and Seo Ah-rang, as well as about 30 famous influencers like Park Hyun-sun (La Vie en), Kim Jun-hee (Eva Juni), and Ppoda.

CJ ENM O Shopping Division decided to fully commit to the Pick the Cell business to strengthen its business capabilities and lead the market in the ‘cell market,’ which has become a pillar of mobile commerce. This year, the size of the cell market in South Korea, including influencer markets, is about 15 trillion KRW, rapidly growing to account for approximately 11% of the total online distribution market of 135 trillion KRW. The average customer age of Pick the Cell is 39, about 10 years younger than TV home shopping customers, and the proportion of new customers is about 5 percentage points higher than the CJ O Shopping average.

CJ ENM O Shopping Division plans to expand the Pick the Cell influencer pool and product range while also broadening sourcing to private brand (PB) products operated on mobile and TV platforms.

Park Kyung-min, head of the M New Business Team at CJ ENM O Shopping Division, stated, “We are considering partnerships with MCN companies to recruit more influencers.”

Meanwhile, products sold on Pick the Cell are sourced either by influencers discovering them directly or by CJ ENM O Shopping Division matching products that influencers want to sell. Once a product is selected for sale, it is sold under special conditions for about three days, and a ‘purchase coordinate (link)’ within CJmall is exposed through the influencer’s Instagram account. All products have viral and digital content individually created, specialized for the influencer, showing differentiation by age, gender, and region.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.