Weekday supermarket closures boost sales at traditional markets: Study

[Photo by Yonhap]

Designating a weekday as a mandatory closing day, instead of Sundays, at South Korea’s large discount stores helps revitalize traditional markets, an analysis showed Tuesday.

According to an analysis by Maeil Business Newspaper of KB Kookmin Card usage on Tuesday, the payment amount at Yukgeori Market, a traditional market, in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province, increased by 8.6 percent from May to October 2023 after the city changed the mandatory closing day for large supermarkets to the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month.

The growth rate is overwhelming compared to the 1.1 percent increase in payment amounts for the country’s three major large supermarkets during the same period.

Yukgeori Market not only saw an 11.6 percent increase in payments on weekdays when large supermarkets were closed but also a 4.4 percent increase in payments on holidays when large supermarkets were open.

In an opinion survey conducted by Cheongju City in March and April 2023, 66.7 percent of respondents supported changing the closing days of large discount stores to weekdays.

Following this opinion, Cheongju became the second local government to implement the change in May after Daegu Metropolitan City, which introduced weekday closures for large supermarkets before Cheongju.

The retail industry points out that the perspective that large supermarkets and traditional markets are in direct competition is no longer valid, as online shopping malls have become mainstream over the past several years. Also, various types of stores, including convenience stores, have emerged.

In fact, the number of large supermarkets has dropped to 396 in 2023, the first time in nine years that the number has fallen below 400, as large supermarkets are shutting down in various locations due to competition from online shopping malls.

Following the positive effects of changing mandatory closing days in Daegu and Cheongju, it is anticipated that discussions on this matter will continue in various local governments.

“Regulating the operating days of large supermarkets does not save traditional stores, but only causes inconvenience to consumers,” said Sung Tae-yoon, a professor at Yonsei University. “It is better to abolish the regulation and leave it to the markets.”