Major Shopping Categories
The most popular online shopping categories were online travel arrangement and reservation services, home electronics and appliances, and fashion and apparel.
The purchase of groceries is where online shoppers in South Korea stand out, as yStats.com’s report reveals. A double-digit share of retail sales of FMCG was made online in 2016, while in other advanced markets such as the USA, the UK and France this share is still in single-digits. Moreover, above one-half of online sales of groceries was transacted via mobile devices.[14]
The most popular foreign sourced products from on-line retailers by Koreans are dietary supplements (16 percent), cosmetics (14 percent), food (13 percent), apparel (12 percent), footwear (8 percent), and electronics (7 percent).
Major retail Holidays
Chu-seok (The 15th day of the 8th lunar month), Seollal (Lunar New Year’s Day), Parents’ day (May 8th) and Children’s day (May 5th) are major buying holidays in Korea. However, when purchasing from foreign online shopping sites, Koreans also follow foreign countries’ buying holidays, like Black Friday, to get the best deals.