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Goyang's Grand Department Store is latest non-Seoul outlet to shut doors

Published: 16 Dec. 2024, 18:46 Updated: 16 Dec. 2024, 19:40

KIM JU-YEON
[email protected]

The Grand Department Store in Goyang, Gyeonggi, operated by retail and space rental firm VenueG, will reportedly close down on Feb. 28, 2025. [GRAND DEPARTMENT STORE]

The Grand Department Store in Goyang, Gyeonggi, will shut down on Feb. 28, the Chosun Ilbo reported Sunday. The branch was the last remaining department store of VenueG, once a retail heavyweight that operated stores in western Seoul's buzzing Sinchon district and the posh Gangnam neighborhood.

The floors that house the department store will reportedly be repurposed as wedding venues after the decision to close it down is approved at a shareholder meeting on Jan. 15. VenueG suspended the department store’s online shopping mall in June and dismantled its business division in August.

VenueG had been a presence in the capital city for many decades. Chairman Kim Man-jin founded the company in 1979. He opened the first Grand Department Store in Gangnam District, southern Seoul, in 1986, then two more in Suwon, Gyeonggi, and Incheon, respectively. The firm also operated supermarkets in Seoul. The Gangnam department store was sold to Lotte Shopping in 1999 after the IMF crisis; a string of sales of Gyeonggi branches and Seoul supermarkets followed in 2012.

Grand Department Store's lackluster sales, juxtaposed with the record-breaking figures that Seoul's largest retail outlets continue generating, illustrate the uphill battle that face smaller retail chains in a market increasingly dominated by conglomerates.

The remaining Ilsan Grand Department Store reported 26.3 billion won ($18.3 million) in total revenue in 2023, while Lotte Department Store's Ilsan branch logged 188.3 billion won in sales.

The Grand Department Store’s revenue amounts to around one third that of Lotte Department Store’s Masan branch in South Gyeongsang, which closed in June after raking in 74 billion in 2023. The Masan store was the lowest grossing department store operated by Lotte and ranked last of the 70 stores operated by Korea’s “Big Five” department store chains: Shinsegae, Lotte, Hyundai, Galleria and AK.

The dominance of those five chains had already posed a challenge to smaller competitors, but the Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated the discrepancy. Taepyung Department Store, a 30-year landmark of Dongjak District, southern Seoul, was the last department store not owned by a large chain remaining in Seoul until its closure in 2021.

A notice at Lotte Department Store's Masan branch alerts customers of the store's closure on June 30. [JOONGANG ILBO]

The Daejeon-based Say Department Store closed its doors in May after being acquired by Together Invest Management. NC Department Store’s Seomyeon branch in Busanjin District, Busan, which was its largest store, also closed in May.

The division among the Big Five’s department stores has also been stark, especially between branches in and outside of Seoul.

The five operators’ 70 department stores nationwide made a total of 39.6 trillion won in 2023. The top 12 department stores accounted for more than half that total, each recording more than 1 trillion won, The bottom 20 department stores, however, made less than 200 billion won in that year. All of their sales, together, still underperform Shinsegae’s Gangnam branch, which recorded its highest sales ever of 3.1 trillion won the same year.

Only 26 department stores of those 70 logged better performance in the second half of this year than they did in the same period of 2023. The top nine performing department stores, all located in major commercial districts in Seoul, Gyeonggi, Busan and Daegu recorded better sales. The majority of stores that logged worse revenue are located on the outskirts or outside of Seoul.

BY KIM JU-YEON [[email protected]]