Storefront, the world’s largest online marketplace for short-term retail space, has officially launched in Seoul. Retail vacancy rates in Korea are on the rise due to a prolonged recession, and more brands are diverting their interests from traditional retail to offer a quality experience to customers in the form of pop-up stores and short-term leases. Storefront has partnered with the Korean marketing and retail firm Kcent to register qualified spaces, sign up leading and emerging brands and give them tools to successfully market their short-term space. The Storefront site will now offer thousands of spaces across Seoul available for pop-up stores, showrooms, and event spaces.
Storefront maintains a global presence with thousands of quality retail spaces across the world’s largest cities from Paris to London, New York and Hong Kong. This advantage allows any brand to pop-up in any location, test new markets and even launch simultaneously in more than one location worldwide.
Retail sales in Korea totaled $343 billion in 2016, and this latest partnership in Seoul signals Storefront’s break into the East Asian market with their brand, technology and insights combined with local talent and market expertise.
“Korea is APAC’s 3rd largest retail market, and most of it is based in Seoul. Pop-up stores and other forms of short-term rentals are already creating a buzz in the trend-savvy Korean market.
All we needed was a transparent and efficient marketplace like Storefront to leverage this trend.” said Jin Yong Kim, Kcent’s CTO.
“Korea has a unique culture and language barrier that make it hard for foreign brands to expand their business here. But if they have the right partner and know how to tell their story to Korean consumers, it can be a matter of a few days before they go viral.” adds Kim.
“Storefront is redefining how companies can locate and activate temporary retail space with its global marketplace for connecting tenants and property owners in an efficient, flexible and transparent way. We are excited to partner with Kcent to bring our expertise to this fast-growing retail capital and introduce the benefits of pop-up stores to thousands of merchants looking to expand into Korea.” said Benoît Clément-Bollée, General Manager, Storefront Asia .