Sale of duty free inventories to locals is coming to an end

A Shinsegae Duty Free branch in Seoul [YONHAP]

Shinsegae Duty Free announced it will end online sales of its unsold inventory, as travel picks up around the world.

The company said Friday that SSG Special, an online shopping mall that offers duty-free items unsold for over six months to people who aren’t going abroad, will stop operating on Sept. 30.

The website will be open until Nov. 30 for customer inquiries.

The company said its business plans are changing as international travel comes back from the pandemic.

In April 2020, the government allowed a special exemption to duty-free companies to temporarily sell items siting in their inventory for six months or more, as companies struggled with a dearth of travelers during the pandemic. Normal duty-free purchases require a customer to prove they are leaving the country and taking the goods with them. Temporarily, inventory items were sold to people who weren’t going abroad.

The exemption was to only last six months, was extended indefinitely.

Other duty-free companies are making similar moves.

Lotte Duty Free stopped operating Lux Mall, a small section at its duty-free branches that also sold unsold inventory items to the general public, at its Myeongdong branch in Jung District, central Seoul, in July.

It still operates similar sections at other branches in Busan and COEX and Jamsil in southern Seoul.

Shilla Trip, Shilla Duty Free’s online equivalent, only allowed customers to make purchases through July. The website it still up, but doesn’t have any products available for purchase.

With travel coming back, companies are returning to focus on duty-free sales to actual travelers.

The Korea Customs Service announced Sept. 14 that duty-free companies will be allowed to sell through third party e-commerce channels such as Coupang and Naver Shopping starting in December, as opposed to only selling on their official websites. Only outgoing travelers will be allowed to shop, and the government expects the change to make duty-free purchases easier since the big e-commerce players have more users.

BY LEE TAE-HEE [lee.taehee2@joongang.co.kr]