[Courtesy of E-Mart]
SEOUL -- E-Mart, the hypermarket arm of South Korea's retail conglomerate Shinsegae, will open a hybrid of restaurants and grocery stores in the United States next year to sell Asian food items, the group's vice chairman said Wednesday.
Vice chairman Chung Yong-jin, the group's de facto head, said at a job fair in Seoul that American customers would be able to buy high-quality food products from various Asian countries when E-Mart opens the PK Market in the United States by May next year.
"We aim to open the PK Market in the United States by May next year. We want to sell Asian food items that locals would like," he said, adding the market would be "grocerant", a hybrid of restaurants and grocery stores, targetting Caucasian residents living in places like Los Angeles.
PK Market, introduced first in 2016 at Starfield Hanam, sells a wide range of top-quality food items at cheaper than other similar premium hypermarkets in the ambiance of old-fashioned American markets.
Starfield is a giant luxury shopping mall complex set up by Chung's group, and the first complex was built in Seoul's southeastern satellite city of Hanam in September 2016. It represents a new paradigm in shopping malls as it provides a combination of shopping, entertainment and leisure to satisfy customers.
Shinsegae plans to relocate E-Mart discount stores in China to Southeast Asian nations, citing poor performances exacerbated by a diplomatic row over a US missile shield. Chung said he would he would soon open E-Mart stores in Australia and Europe. "I will try to do business in developed countries without regulations by taking the lessons of painful failures in the Chinese market," he said.
Chung said Shinsegae would build a 30-story high-tech online center near Starfield in Hanam. In January, the group forged a deal with two foreign firms on an investment of about 940 million US dollars into its integrated e-commerce division aimed at nurturing online shopping malls.
reporter
Lim Chang-won
cwlim34@ajunews.com
