發布日期:2023-01-29 14:42:43
Customers wait in line to purchase Chanel products at Lotte Department Store in Seoul prior to the price hike in June 2021. Yonhap
By Kim Jae-heun
French luxury fashion house Chanel will withdraw its duty free business from downtown areas starting from March, market insider said on Tuesday. Chanel has been operating only two duty-free stores in Busan and on Jeju Island outside of Seoul in Korea.
"International luxury firms have recently been rushing out from the local duty free sector to maintain their premium brand image which has been tarnished by "Daigou" (surrogate shoppers from China). They have been asking for excessive discounts here and some of them have even resold luxury products they purchased in Korea with counterfeit ones in their homeland," the source said.
Chanel has taken action against "Daigou" as their purchasing power grew uncontrollably big in Korea. Nearly 90 percent of local duty-free shops' sales in downtown stores come from surrogate Chinese shoppers as COVID-19 continues around the world.
Rolex and Louis Vuitton also decided to pull out their business in the sector for the same reason with Chanel as of last year.
This is expected to bring a huge impact to duty-free firms as their sales in downtown areas already plunged by some 38 percent in 2020, affected by the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Moodie Davitt Report.
The government decided to repeal its implementation of a $5,000 purchase limit for shoppers traveling abroad from March but maintained the cap of $600 for domestic travelers.
Yet International luxury brands will continue operating their boutiques at airports in Incheon and on Jeju Island.
"I think Chanel and Louis Vuitton have come up with a solution that they would rather sell their duty-free products directly to Chinese customers in the mainland than to "Daigou" in Korea," a market insider said. "They want to adjust the number of duty free shops operating in Asia and Pacific Ocean regions focused on the Chinese Market."
Meanwhile, other global luxury brands like Gucci, Prada and Burberry have not yet revealed plans of reducing duty free business here yet. They said they cannot comment on the issue due to their headquarters' global marketing policies.