The differentiated pop-up stores at Lotte Department Store's Gwangju branch are breathing new life into a stagnant commercial district. Dubbed the "pop-up mecca" of the Honam region, it is establishing itself as a new hotspot.
According to local retail sources Tuesday, the Chungjang-ro and Geumnam-ro areas — which had been unable to escape a downturn amid a clear hollowing-out of the old downtown in Jeonnam-Gwangju Integrated Special City — have recently begun drawing visitors one by one, led by the MZ generation.
At the center of this trend, observers say, is the only department store in the area, Lotte Department Store's Gwangju branch.
As the hollowing-out of the old downtown commercial district continued, the Gwangju branch launched a "New Content Task Force" last year.
The task force's main job is to discover various items that can energize the MZ generation and incorporate them into the department store.
Lee So-jeong, head of new content at Lotte Department Store Gwangju, said the effort began out of a desperate need to bring young people back to the old downtown. "While pop-up stores used to simply serve as a way for companies to promote brands and new products, they have recently become places where MZ customers directly experience and enjoy content," she said.
The New Content Task Force is made up of about 10 employees across various fields, including marketing, support and sales. Through weekly item meetings, the team searches for and attracts pop-ups that are trending nationwide.
The response to these company-wide efforts has been enthusiastic. Recently, the number of followers of Lotte Department Store Gwangju on social networking services (SNS) has been rapidly increasing.
Sales have followed suit. From January to June this year, the sales composition ratio of customers in their 20s and 30s at the Gwangju branch rose more than 10 percent compared with last year.
Even sales from primary customers in their 40s and 50s increased more than 5 percent. Concerns that focusing on the MZ demographic might cause a decline in sales among middle-aged customers were completely dispelled. This is analyzed as the department store appealing to its core customer base as it became bolder and younger. In addition, weekend customer numbers at the basement-level food hall, where the "pop-up store zone" is located, rose sharply by more than 30 percent.
The Gwangju branch attracted about 20 pop-ups this year alone, a figure that is more than 40 percent higher than last year.
It was not just the numbers that grew — there was qualitative growth as well.
While more than 90 percent of previous pop-ups were food-related, recent offerings have expanded in diversity to include not only food but also film, fashion and webtoons, broadening the range of attractions.
Lotte Department Store Gwangju says these sales are not inferior even when compared with large stores in the greater Seoul area.
"A young wind has recently been blowing through the old downtown, which had been called the graveyard of the MZ generation," said Kim Young-yeol, head of the support team at Lotte Department Store Gwangju. "The key factor is analyzed to be the significant synergy effect of the unique pop-up stores."
