Input 2021.03.23 14:00
On the 23rd, an apartment mall in Haengsin-dong, Deogyang-gu, Goyang-si. Until last month, an unmanned ice cream discount store opened in the place where the vegetable store had been. The signboard of the store was an ice cream shop, but in addition to ice cream, a variety of food items such as snacks, ramen, and drinks were on display. Instead of keeping the cashier at the cash register, the customer directly prints a barcode and pays at the kiosk.
There are four main reasons why unmanned ice cream discount stores are rapidly spreading. First of all, it is possible to avoid the’prohibition of the same type of business in shopping malls’. It is difficult to open new stores for convenience stores or supermarkets that are already in most shopping streets unless they are acquired by the store. However, it is easy to open ice cream discount stores because it is often recognized that the industries do not overlap. Of course, in reality, many of the items handled overlap with convenience stores, except for alcohol, cigarettes, convenience food, and household goods.
The second is that the opportunity cost of a theft accident is much lower than the labor cost. Assuming that a general convenience store hires a part-time worker for 16 hours a day, if the minimum wage is 8720 won plus weekly vacation pay, about 10,000 won per hour will be spent. That means 160,000 won a day and 4.8 million won a month as labor costs. No matter how many thousand won ice cream is stolen, it is the’blood of new feet’.
Seo Yong-gu, a professor of business administration at Sookmyung Women’s University, said, “As e-commerce has grown rapidly due to Corona 19, the percentage of offline retailers that are less competitive is gradually turning to unmanned stores.” Said. Professor Seo said, “In particular, ice cream is a product suitable for unmanned stores due to its long shelf life. In the future, not only retail stores, but also restaurants and cafes will be increasingly unmanned,” he said.
There is also the fact that the profitability of coin karaoke rooms and reading rooms, which were the current trend of unmanned startups, has greatly deteriorated due to Corona 19. In particular, there are many companies that failed to operate coin karaoke rooms last year, and even now, due to strict quarantine guidelines, the number of customers and profitability have declined. If you violate the quarantine guidelines such as writing an access list and wearing a mask at all times, you will be subject to fines and business suspensions. For this reason, there are many business owners who switch to other unmanned start-ups that are relatively free from quarantine risks.
Lastly, it is analyzed that the threshold for small-capital startups has been lowered as the rights to shopping malls and rental fees have fallen. Increasing numbers of companies are shutting down due to Corona 19. According to statistics from the Korea Real Estate Agency, last year, the ratio of the rights to shopping malls in’wholesale and retail business’ nationwide was 43.6%, down 13.1 percentage points from the previous year (56.7%). During the same period, the level of rights fees also fell from 4464 million won to 4,092 million won. The average rent for small shopping centers across the country was 19,600 won in the fourth quarter of last year, down 3.5% from the same period last year (2,300 won).
However, experts advised that you should not jump into an unmanned business start-up just because it does not require labor costs. Dongguk University adjunct professor Ko Jun-seok said, “In addition to labor costs, various incidental expenses such as rental, sales and management fees, and affiliate fees are incurred. It is important to note that online shopping malls such as Coupang are also competitors.”