flood: Online shopping sales in South Korea rose 13 percent in November year-on-year, driven by major sales promotion events, Yonhap News Agency reported, citing data from Statistics Korea on Wednesday.
This is the largest increase since August 2022, when the figure rose 15.9 percent year-on-year.
The value of online shopping transactions reached a record high of 20.84 trillion won (US$15.89 billion) in November, up from 18.44 trillion won.
The growth came as the country held its annual Korean Sale Festival – the Korean equivalent of Black Friday – for 20 days from November 10 to 30, on its largest scale ever, with more than 2,500 companies offering big deals, an agency official said. He said.
Surging demand for travel and transportation services after the COVID-19 pandemic also led overall growth, which rose 28.3% year-on-year to 2.01 trillion won in November.
The data showed that food and beverage sales rose 12.9 percent to 2.57 trillion won, and clothing sales jumped 13 percent to 2.25 trillion won, an all-time high.
Transactions of vehicles and automobile products rose 46.6 percent to 552.1 billion won in November, and transactions of mobile phones and other communications devices rose 21.4 percent.
Purchases made through smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices rose 12.1 percent year on year to 15.25 trillion won. This was the first time the amount exceeded the 15 trillion won level