Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) of the Republic of Korea announced today that Korea’s retail industry grew 8.0 percent year-on-year for the month of November 2024, with offline and online sales advancing 3.9 and 11.8 percent, respectively.

MOTIE's monthly retail sales figures are based on surveys of 23 major retailers. Thirteen of them are brick-and-mortar retailers: three department store chains, three hypermarket chains, three convenience store chains, and four super supermarket (SSMs) operators. The remaining 10 are online retailers.

By offline retail channel, hypermarket sales increased 5.7 percent, with demand for home dining and kimchi-making driving sales of food products (up 10.2 percent), while home/living (down 2.1 percent) and non-food categories (down 3.7 percent) fell.

Department store sales improved 1.4 percent on the backs of food products (up 3.8 percent) and foreign designer labels (up 7.8 percent), while fashion categories like miscellaneous goods (down 3.5 percent) and women’s suits (down 7.1 percent) continued to drop.

Convenience store sales saw growth across both food (up 5.9 percent) and non-food products (up 4.1 percent), increasing 5.1 percent overall.

SSM operators enjoyed sales growth of 6.8 percent centering on demand for food products (up 7.5 percent) thanks to the home dining trend and kimchi-making, but non-food products (down 0.6 percent) maintained their downward slope.

Online retail sales surged 11.8 percent overall as food products (up 19.1 percent) and service/other (up 70.7 percent) achieved steady growth on the backs of robust demand for processed food products, convenience foods, food delivery services, travel packages, and e-coupons.

Meanwhile, home appliances/electronics (down 9.9 percent), fashion/clothing (down 9.1 percent), and sports (down 10.7 percent) experienced declines due to impact from overseas direct purchases (ODP).