Overseas Expansion by Online Shopping Malls Accelerates

[ 12/19/2007 ]

Online shopping mall operators are beginning to make full-scale moves into overseas markets. Gmarket, Auction, Tricycle, and other companies laid the groundwork for overseas expansion this year and plan to launch websites in Japan, China, the Philippines, and other countries beginning next year. Gmarket (CEO Koo Young-bae) is focusing on entering the Japanese and U.S. markets. To this end, the company formed a global team of approximately 20 employees, including team leader Kim Hyo-jong, and is concentrating on shipping a wide variety of products to the United States, Japan, Australia, Canada, and other countries. It also established a branch office last month and dispatched its strategy team to Japan in preparation for entering the Japanese market. The company plans to launch a Japanese version of the Gmarket website around January next year and conduct large-scale marketing activities to recruit overseas sellers and raise brand awareness in Japan. A company official said, “After observing the market response in Japan, we plan to expand into the United States and other regions.” Tricycle is accelerating its expansion into China. As rising income levels have increased the number of online shoppers in China, the company plans to begin by launching Stylet 2.0 (tentative name) early next year. To this end, the company has spent approximately one year establishing its business foundation with the assistance of local consultants. Stylet 2.0 will provide fashion information centered on items that were previously difficult to access, including next-season products and hot items selected by fashion experts. Tricycle recently established Tricycle Shanghai Trading Co., Ltd. and opened an offline store in Shanghai. This was done to register both online and offline operations, including wholesale and retail, because obtaining approval for an online business in China is difficult. Auction is also reportedly pursuing expansion into the Philippines.