In the PC cafe line closing… Yongsan’s bitter resurrection

On the afternoon of the 21st, used PCs are piled up in a corner of Seonin Shopping Center, Yongsan Electronics Shopping Center, Yongsan-gu, Seoul.

[아시아경제 정동훈 기자, 이정윤 기자] On the afternoon of the 21st, Seonin Shopping Center in Yongsan Electronics Shopping Center, Yongsan-gu, Seoul, which is a shopping center focused on purchasing and selling used computers (PCs) was busy. After the novel coronavirus infection (Corona 19) pandemic, customers were cut off in restaurants, cafes, pubs, and PC rooms, and the whole city was quiet as if hibernating, but the Yongsan electronic shopping mall was not as good as it was. Handcarts carrying air caps for packing PCs, such as’poppongi’, corrugated cardboard, PC parts, etc., traversed every corner of the mall. In the narrow passage, carts and customers were tangled and congested.

Yongsan Electronics Shopping Center gained’reflection profits’ as PC cafes that repeatedly stopped and resumed operations due to reinforced social distancing were closed one after another. According to the data released by analyzing the data of the real estate 114-ga Small Business Market Promotion Corporation, the number of tourism, leisure, and entertainment businesses including PC cafes decreased from 1714 in the first quarter to 10,454 in the second quarter, and the closing rate reached 10.8%. Used PCs that have been for sale in a PC room are reassembled by parts here and are sold to consumers through a process.

One used PC dealer explains that the purchase volume increased by about 10% as the PC cafe closed after Corona 19. He said, “It is true that the number of purchases increased with Corona 19 had a positive effect,” he said. “The purchased PC is disassembled and sold by parts.” He added, “Even if the purchase increases, parts with good performance are immediately purchased by domestic consumers, and those with a little drop are exported overseas, so there is no worry about the sales place,” he added. “About 7% of the PC purchase price remains as a profit.” Kim Seong-ho (37), who handles PC parts here, said, “Popular parts such as the latest graphics cards are scaryly sold. It’s not special for Corona 19, but it’s true that sales are also increasing during the’difficult and difficult’ period. said. Hanmo, 31, an employee of a PC assembly company, said, “Used PCs are not sold as they are, but are reassembled to meet the needs of customers. Recently, as telecommuting has become more common and demand for games at home increases, the number of assembly orders is large. I’m busy,” he said.

On the afternoon of the 21st, the game specialist in Yongsan Electronic Shopping Center showed a flat appearance because there were no customers.

Yongsan Electronics Market is a sacred place for those who want to purchase electronic products such as PC parts, game software, and cameras. Yongsan Electronics Shopping Center, a kind of planned market created in the 1980s to emigrate electronic merchants at Sewoon Shopping Center and Daerim in Cheonggyecheon Shopping District, opened in 1987 and has been in the middle of Yongsan for 34 years. ‘Yong-Dun’ (Yongsan Dungeon), which is attached to the complex structure like a cave, and’Yong-Pal-i’, which refers to a seller of bad electronic devices, has made the image unfavorable to consumers, but it is experiencing an unusual boom due to Corona 19. The same Yongsan Electronics Market, but the one that sells game-related products was hit directly by the Corona 19 crisis. As platforms for purchasing games online, such as Steam, became a trend, customers stopped visiting offline stores. Corona 19 has accelerated the pace of this change.

In the Yongsan Electronic Shopping Center, Najin Shopping Center, which was virtually the last game specialty shopping mall, looked straight. A cold wind blew through the empty stores. Mr. Kim, 50, who sells console game consoles and game packs at Najin Shopping Center, said, “Sales have decreased by more than 50% since Corona 19. We mainly sell game packs, but there are many days to sell 2 or 3 pieces a day.” And vomited. Choi Mo (61), who handles console game consoles such as PlayStation, said, “In the case of the latest PlayStation 5, most of them are sold online or through direct stores, so it is difficult to touch retail stores like ours.” “After Corona 19, it is difficult to compare sales. “It’s roughly a tenth of a piece.”

Reporter Jeong Dong-hoon [email protected]
Reporter Jeongyoon Lee [email protected]