It seems that more and more South Koreans are taking advantage of China's annual sale event -- called Singles' Day -- rather than shopping during the Black Friday shopping season.
Oh Soo-young explains.
China's annual shopping event is becoming more popular than Black Friday in South Korea.
According to data from credit card company Shinhan Card,... more and more Koreans are shopping on Chinese websites, especially on Singles' Day -- China's biggest sale event of the year, which falls on November eleventh.
The total amount spent by Korean shoppers that day jumped 35 percent on-year,... compared to a nine percent jump during the promotional period for Black Friday last month.
As 71 percent of Singles' Day purchases were below 50-thousand won or 44 U.S. dollars,... it seems consumers were looking for budget items on Chinese e-commerce platforms.
The total amount spent on overseas websites in November grew by nearly ten percent,... but the number of purchases grew by almost 17 percent.
Shinhan Card says this is likely due to shoppers breaking up their purchases to avoid import taxes on items costing more than 150 dollars,... or 200 dollars for U.S. products.
With the growing trend of shopping on Chinese websites,... the proportion of purchases on Chinese online outlet AliExpress grew three-point-four percentage points to nine-point-five percent this year, giving it the second most sales by a foreign website.
The U.S. e-commerce site Amazon topped the list with 16 percent of the market, and Alibaba's Taobao ranked third with a share of four-point-four percent.
Shinhan Card says those in their twenties and fifties showed the most significant increase in spending this year,... with the younger generation tending to buy higher-end products while the older generation appear to be in the stage of getting used to overseas purchases.
Oh Soo-young, Arirang News.