Hyundai Department Store enters early-morning delivery market

A Hyundai Department Store poster promotes the new early-morning delivery service available through its new online mall, starting Wednesday. [HYUNDAI DEPARTMENT STORE]

Hyundai Department Store is expanding its food delivery service through the launch of its own online mall.

Starting Wednesday, the department store is providing an early-morning delivery service for fresh produce and processed food to customers who place an order by 11 p.m. the night before on its new online mall. Deliveries will be made by 7 a.m. the next morning to residents of Seoul and some parts of Gyeonggi and Incheon.

Hyundai Department Store, which has 15 branches nationwide, started its delivery service in 2018 from its branch in Mok-dong, western Seoul, to Seoul residents.

The department store is offering food from its food courts, which includes pastries, processed food and fresh produce like fruit . Around 4,000 products are available for delivery.

The department store is also offering processed food made in collaboration with popular restaurants, including prime ribs from Mong Tan in Yongsan District, central Seoul.

The retailer constructed a distribution center in Gimpo, Gyeonggi, to facilitate early-morning delivery.

“The opening of an online mall has expanded customers’ accessibility to [Hyundai] department stores’ food with high competitiveness,” said a spokesperson for Hyundai Department Store in a statement. “It is expected to not just raise the shopping convenience of the existing users of the department stores’ food court, but will also create a new user base.”

Hyundai Department Store “plans to continuously develop optional services to maximize the synergy effect of operating offline and online stores based on department stores.”

The retailer charges 3,500 won ($2.90) for delivery of orders below 50,000 won.

Early-morning delivery has become an essential service for retailers in recent years.

Since Market Kurly initiated early-morning delivery in 2015, other retailers, including Coupang and SSG.com, rolled out similar services.

The market value of early-morning delivery is projected to grow 87.5 percent on year from 800 billion won last year to 1.5 trillion won this year, a huge jump from 10 billion won in 2015.

Hyundai Department Store is also offering a delivery service for cooked meals from its branch in Gangnam, southern Seoul, through the new online mall. Meals cooked at the branch’s food court can be delivered within three kilometers (2 miles) in an hour or less.

“Hyundai Department Store may be the first department store brand to launch an early delivery service, but Shinsegae and Lotte are already providing such services through their SSG.com and Lotte Mart affiliates,” said a spokesperson for Shinsegae Department Store. “It may have a different customer base that prioritizes premium products, but how successful [is questionable], considering that it is a latecomer to the early-morning delivery service.”

BY JIN MIN-JI [jin.minji@joongang.co.kr]