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On the 10th, a day before the Lunar New Year, Yeongdeungpo Traditional Market in Yeongdeungpo-dong, Seoul. It was a time when it had to be crowded with people who came to prepare festival goods, but it was difficult to find customers in the market. The situation of Mapo Market in Gongdeok-dong and Gongdeok Market was not very different. The merchants stare blankly in the air, or fiddle with their cell phones, waiting for customers who did not come. Stores that were closed also stood out everywhere.
The atmosphere of the Mapo Gongdeok branch, E-Mart, located in Singongdeok-dong, Seoul, was the opposite. The inside of the mart was crowded with customers pulling a cart for each. There were long lines at the cash register, and customers’ carts were full of fresh foods such as fruits, vegetables, and meat.
Although the government and political circles are constantly regulating hypermarkets and trying to’restore the traditional market’, consumers are not turning to the traditional market. It is analyzed that there is a need for measures to increase the competitiveness of the traditional market rather than confining retailers.
“I can’t believe in the hygiene of the traditional market”
“You don’t go to the traditional market because you are going to the mart? I hate the traditional market, so I go to the mart.”
An Mo, 43, a full-time housewife who met at E-Mart’s Mapo Gongdeok branch, said, “It has been more than 10 years since I stopped visiting the traditional market.” The biggest reason Ahn doesn’t visit traditional markets is hygiene. He said he couldn’t believe the condition of fresh food on the market.
Actually, the hygiene conditions of the three traditional markets that the reporter looked at were extremely poor compared to that of a hypermarket. In some stores, vegetables and fruits were placed in baskets and sold on the asphalt floor. As the motorcycles and trucks passed by, dust from the dust landed on them. Fish and shellfish, such as fresh fish, were often kept at room temperature without a refrigeration facility.
This is not the only reason consumers have turned their backs on traditional markets. The irrational pricing policy of the traditional market is also cited as a cause. In the Yeongdeungpo traditional market, it was difficult to find stores with prices marked on products. The process of asking prices and bargaining is inevitably unfamiliar and uncomfortable for the younger generation who are accustomed to mart and internet shopping.
Eunmo, 35, who lives in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, said, “The mart with prices for each product is familiar and convenient,” he said. “There is no reason to go to the market by asking the merchants for prices.”
Some merchants’ immoral behavior was shared online. This is a video of a fish market merchant’scaling’ the raw fish purchased by a customer. The weighing of the scale is a method of deceiving the weight of the basket containing sashimi or by pressing the scale invisible to make the weight of the scale. Mr. Jeon, 32, living in Gangdong-gu, Seoul, said, “I don’t know anything else, but I bought raw fish at the fish market, but I was shocked to see merchants doing’weighing’ on YouTube recently.” .
The inherent problems of the traditional market, such as the lack of convenient facilities such as parking lots and toilets, and some merchants refusing to pay by card, are still not resolved.
Promotion of sales regulation for complex shopping malls and online distribution platforms
Consumers stopped going to the market due to the decline in the competitiveness of the traditional market itself, but the political world still cites hypermarkets as the reason for the collapse of the traditional market. In recent years, it has taken a step further and is pursuing a plan to apply the’twice monthly business limit’ regulation applied to marts to complex shopping malls.
Hong Ik-pyo, a member of the Democratic Party, also proposed an amendment to the Distribution Industry Development Act that restricts the operation of complex shopping malls such as Starfield and Lotte Mall twice a month, like hypermarkets. Dong-ju Lee, a Democratic Party lawmaker, introduced a bill that includes not only complex shopping malls, but also department stores and duty-free shops.
There is also a movement to push the blade of regulation beyond the regulation of the offline distribution industry to the online distribution industry. In addition, the Democratic Party is contemplating how to amend the Win-Win Cooperation Act for large and small companies to apply item restrictions and business hours restrictions applied to hypermarkets to online distribution platforms such as Coupang and Market Kurly. If such regulations are applied, the’morning delivery’ service, which is considered to have greatly improved the convenience of consumers, is expected to become impossible.
Seong Tae-yoon, professor of economics at Yonsei University, said, “It has already been proven by experience that traditional markets cannot be activated by closing the offline distribution network. To save the traditional market, we need to pursue measures to save competitiveness, such as the modernization of the market. “It’s not a problem to be solved by twisting it.”
Reporter Park Jong-gwan [email protected]
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