Main Target Male Aged 25-39 with High Fashion Involvement
Attracting Domestic and International Brands through Curation Competitiveness
Musinsa's online select shop ‘29CM (Isipgu Sentimiteo)’ is driving efforts to expand into men's fashion. Based on the curation competitiveness accumulated in its core categories of lifestyle and women's fashion, the strategy is to actively attract domestic and international brands that appeal to male consumers in their 20s and 30s to increase market influence.
According to Musinsa on the 16th, 29CM has started operating a men's fashion pop-up exhibition called 'Men's Formula' at 'Igu Seongsu' in Seongsu-dong, Seoul. This exhibition is designed to allow customers to try on and purchase 470 products from 23 brands selected by 29CM in the men's fashion sector. This is the first time 29CM has opened a pop-up store focused on men's fashion.
29CM plans to officially expand its category into men's fashion starting with this ‘Men's Formula’. While maintaining stable growth centered on lifestyle and women's fashion, the strategy is to add growth momentum by expanding into men's fashion. Musinsa reported that last year, 29CM's total transaction amount based on confirmed purchases grew 77% year-on-year to 487.8 billion KRW. This amount is about 30 billion KRW ahead of its competitor ‘W Concept (475.9 billion KRW)’. Both 29CM and W Concept were acquired and incorporated as subsidiaries by Musinsa and Shinsegae Group's SSG.com respectively in 2021. Both platforms grew primarily with women in their 20s and 30s as their main customers, and at the time of acquisition, W Concept was ahead. However, 29CM surpassed W Concept last year by focusing on strengthening its independent branding through concentrated investment.
The reason 29CM is expanding into men's fashion amid its growth is because it judges the growth potential to be high. As of the first half of this year, key business indicators such as the number of new male customers and purchase amount per customer at 29CM all showed double-digit growth. 29CM believes this result comes from consistently promoting the entry of competitive emerging brands. In other words, if attractive new brands continue to be attracted and supplied, the environment is sufficient to elicit additional market responses.
In fact, a survey conducted by the Korea Federation of Textile Industries on consumers in their 20s and 30s about the type of shopping mall best suited for discovering brands that match their tastes found that 39.8% of male respondents chose fashion specialty malls. This is because each specialty mall curates products from various brands evenly according to its own concept, making it easier to discover new brands that fit their preferences.
29CM plans to target men aged 25 to 39 who have a high interest in fashion as its main customers and continuously discover and nurture emerging brands that can induce their purchases. In addition, it plans to actively consider introducing overseas high-end brands that have not been introduced domestically as well as competitive domestic brands to diversify the choices of brands preferred by customers.
A 29CM representative explained, “Male consumers aged 25 to 39 show significant growth in key business indicators,” adding, “As of the end of last month, about 70% of 29CM's male customers are aged 25 to 39.” The representative also said, “Even if a brand is not well known to the public, if it has potential, we will introduce it first,” but emphasized, “Rather than quantitative growth by simply increasing the number of brands, we will carefully select and showcase brands that align with the values 29CM pursues.”
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