Emart is rapidly converting its private brand (PB) specialty stores, "No Brand," into hubs for quick commerce services. At the group level, the company is investing heavily in adopting and expanding quick commerce to absorb demand for nearby grocery shopping.
According to Emart on Friday, No Brand launched quick commerce services at four directly operated stores through the delivery app "Baedal Minjok" in late April, then expanded the number of available stores to 100 within a month. Although the company initially described the quick commerce service at the four stores as a pilot operation, it soon decided to officially roll out the service and rapidly increased the number of stores offering it. Under the No Brand quick commerce model, when an order comes in through Baemin, an employee picks up the ordered products, and a quick delivery driver delivers them to the customer.
Emart decided to expand quick commerce services so quickly because it had prepared a strategy for responding to the quick commerce market in advance. In March, Emart commissioned PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) for consulting on entering quick commerce. At the time, the internal analysis and the entry strategy proposed by PwC effectively aligned, prompting Emart to launch the No Brand quick commerce service, according to sources.
Emart determined that, amid slowing growth at offline stores due to the rise of e-commerce, quick commerce represented a new market that could improve logistics efficiency and secure customers. Emart has now expanded quick commerce services not only to No Brand but also to its hypermarket division Emart, its corporate supermarket (SSM) Emart Everyday, and its convenience store Emart24, through external platforms or SSG.com. This means all retail channels except the warehouse discount store Traders have entered the quick commerce market.
The Emart hypermarket division in particular began quick commerce in 2024 and now provides the service at 106 stores. This exceeded its target of 90 quick commerce stores for the second quarter of this year. "No Brand currently has about 250 stores in total, and we expect to be able to offer quick commerce at 150 stores within the year," an Emart official said.
