“Forget about the package award”… Dongdaemun fashion through the world market on a LAN line

Mr. Park, 42, who runs two wholesale women’s clothing stores in Dongdaemun, Seoul, lamented on the 7th, “It’s easy to think that the business was closed because we couldn’t do business last year.” However, he said, “In the new year, all the merchants in Dongdaemun are dreaming of entering the global market together with the corona crisis.”

The Dongdaemun fashion industry is starting to enter the global market again after overcoming the Corona 19 crisis. This is by expanding the online platform that used to connect Dongdaemun wholesalers and retailers to the global stage as well as in Korea, China, and Japan. ‘New Market’, which connects Dongdaemun wholesalers and retailers, signed an alliance with’QuuBe’, a global e-commerce wholesale platform last month. Cube, operated by Qoo10, is a global site that sells products from Korea, China, and Japan throughout Asia.

APM Lux, a shopping mall in Dongdaemun, where Park runs a store, says that Chinese people, including Chinese bag dealers and Wang Hong (Chinese influencers), account for about 80% of all customers. But last year, Corona 19 completely cut off the visit of the Chinese bundle. At the beginning of the year last year, the Chinese visitors, which had plunged sharply in 2017 due to the THAAD (high-altitude missile defense system) conflict, seemed to continue, raising expectations. However, the expectations of Dongdaemun merchants completely collapsed as their visits were cut off due to Corona 19.

Park said, “Dongdaemun wholesalers will be able to sell apparel products to fashion retailers around the world without having to deal with Chinese bag dealers.” Most of all, expectations are high that it will not be swung over by unexpected variables such as THAAD or Corona 19. He said, “It’s amazing to be able to sell products overseas while sitting in Dongdaemun.”

Currently, there are 10,000 wholesalers and 130,000 national fashion retailers in the new market used by Dongdaemun merchants. In the apparel industry, the influence is so strong that there is a saying that “in Dongdaemun, you cannot do business unless you join a new market.” In April last year, the accumulated transaction amount exceeded 1 trillion won, and last year’s order amount was about 430 billion won, an increase of 100 billion won from a year ago.

In the future, the new market product market will expand to the global stage. The products posted on the new market are selected by the cube curating team according to overseas trends, placed on the cube, and promoted. Overseas delivery is one-stop. Q10, a cube operator, collects apparel products sent from Dongdaemun at the QX Express (QX) Korea Logistics Center in Gimpo, and handles overseas customs clearance and local delivery.

Q10, which operates Cube, was founded in Singapore in 2010 by CEO Young-bae Koo, the founder of G Market. The plan is to apply the experience of Gmarket, which has achieved great success by selling Dongdaemun clothing online, to Southeast Asia. Q10 has also built a aviation-based cross-border trading (CBT) network centered on Korea through QExpress, an online export delivery company, for’Korean-style fast delivery’. As of early January, more than 1800 Dongdaemun apparel products have been registered on the Cube, and although the Cube has not opened in earnest, orders are already coming in from Japan.

Q10 said, “First of all, we will expand the market of products registered in the new market to China, Japan, and Asia. In the future, Dongdaemun merchants will be able to reduce their dependence on Chinese bag dealers and sell clothes to the world.” .

Reporter Chu In-young [email protected]