Kakao Supports Digital Transformation of 8 Shopping Districts Nationwide in First Phase of Regular Street Project

Kakao announced on the 7th that it has completed the first phase of the 'Dangol Street' project, conducted in collaboration with Kakao Impact, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, the Small Enterprise and Market Service, and the Fair Trade Commission, and plans to launch the second phase within this month.

Dangol Street, which started in April this year, is a project where Kakao employees and professional tutors visit local commercial districts and shopping streets to support the use of Kakao services and digital transformation. It also helps merchants communicate with customers online.

During the first phase, which ran until last month, one-on-one customized training was provided to about 500 small business owners in eight locations: the Chungjang-ro commercial district in Gwangju, the old downtown commercial district in Andong, the Eungubi-seoro alley-type shopping street in Daejeon, the Jangteo-gil alley-type shopping street in Seongnam, the Bupyeong Renaissance commercial district in Incheon, the Chilseong-ro shopping street in Jeju City, the Saemgoeul Jeongdaun commercial district in Jeongeup, and the old downtown commercial district in Jecheon.

Additionally, to help activate these commercial districts through Kakao services, a total of 150 million KRW was provided free of charge for KakaoTalk channel message sending fees: 3 million KRW each for the representative KakaoTalk channels of each commercial district and 300,000 KRW each for about 450 individual store channels. Online and offline marketing was conducted to promote the local commercial districts' KakaoTalk channels, resulting in an average of about 1,400 new customers communicating through each district's KakaoTalk representative channel. Through this Dangol Street project, approximately 450 new channels were created, with a total friend count reaching around 50,000.

Moreover, over 95% of the participating stores in this Dangol Street project started using the Kakao Map store management service.

Encouraged by the positive response, Kakao plans to extend the support period for each local commercial district from the existing 4 weeks to 8 weeks in the second phase. New benefits such as strengthened support for operating and promoting local commercial district representative channels and a star store cultivation program will also be provided. Follow-up support will be offered to small business owners who participated in the first phase.

Park Yoon-seok, Kakao’s Shared Growth Performance Leader, said, "This Dangol Street project is a starting point to expand support for small business owners nationwide. Through the Dangol Market and Dangol Street projects, we plan to strengthen support so that more small business owners can communicate with their loyal customers in a digital environment."

Meanwhile, Kakao is operating 'Project Dangol,' which provides solutions through direct visits to support the digital transformation of small business owners. Project Dangol carries out various initiatives nationwide targeting small business owners, including Dangol Market supporting traditional market merchants and Dangol Street targeting local shopping districts.