Musinsa Standard Hyundai Department Store Sinchon Branch officially opened on November 1
[파이낸셜뉴스] ‘Musinsa Standard’, a modern basic casual wear brand developed by Musinsa, is accelerating its offline expansion. Although it started online, there are predictions that it could grow to the point where it could threaten Uniqlo, a representative SPA (manufactured and sold apparel) brand, by increasing offline contact points.
According to Musinsa on the 3rd, the number of offline stores increased to 17 in total with the opening of a store at the Hyundai Department Store Uplex Sinchon branch on the 1st. The new Musinsa Standard store, which officially opened this time, is located on the 4th floor of U-PLEX, a young fashion specialty store at the Sinchon branch of Hyundai Department Store. This is the second store opened in Hyundai Department Store after the Jungdong branch opened in April.
Musinsa Standard exclusively occupies a space of 200 pyeong (654 ㎡ based on operating area) on the 4th floor of U-Plex in Sinchon branch. Among the products related to the lifestyle brand ‘Musinsa Standard Home’, which was first launched online on the 30th of last month, some household goods are also sold.
Musinsa Standard, which is rapidly increasing its offline stores, is seeing rapid sales and visitor growth. Musinsa Standard announced that the cumulative number of offline store visitors exceeded 10 million as of the end of July. This is a record achieved three years after opening the first store, ‘Musinsa Standard Hongdae’, at the Hongik University entrance in Seoul in May 2021.
This year alone, the number of visitors from January to July was 5.27 million, a 350% increase compared to the same period last year. The number of monthly unique visitors exceeded 1 million for three consecutive months from last May to July. Sales also grew significantly, with cumulative sales from January to July of this year increasing approximately 3.5 times (250%) compared to the same period last year.
It has great potential to grow into Korea’s leading SPA brand. This is because we have received love calls from large distribution companies and are expanding stores in major locations, and foreign tourists are also showing a lot of interest.
In fact, Musinsa Standard is known to have generated sales of 200 billion won last year, but as of 2023, the number of offline stores was only five, including Hongdae, Gangnam, Dongseong-ro, Seongsu, and Seomyeon. In comparison, Samsung C&T’s SPA brand ‘8 Seconds’, which is number one in the domestic fashion industry, has annual sales estimated at 300 billion won last year and has about 70 offline stores. As Musinsa Standard is rapidly increasing its offline stores, it appears to have a good chance of winning in competition with domestic fashion conglomerates.
There are also predictions that it could become a rival to global SPA brand Uniqlo.
The calculation is that if the number of Musinsa Standard stores increases as much as Uniqlo, sales may exceed this. Currently, Uniqlo operates 131 stores in Korea, and Uniqlo operator FRL Korea’s sales in the most recent fiscal year (September 2022 to August 2023) were KRW 921.9 billion, and are on the verge of exceeding KRW 1 trillion this year.
An industry official said, “Musinsa Standard has the advantage of already having a significant customer base and influence online, which is considered a weakness of other SPA brands,” and added, “If it attracts new customers and foreign tourists by expanding offline stores, sales growth will be more resilient.” “I think we can stick to it,” he said.
wonder@fnnews.com Reporter Jeong Sang-hee
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