We’ve settled into a somewhat predictable and boring, though for me quite enjoyable, Saturday afternoon ritual: our weekly trip to E-mart.
E-mart is Korea’s oldest and largest hypermarket chain. It was created in 1993 as a division of Shinsegae, Korea’s oldest and largest department store chain. (And Shinsegae Centum City in Busan is literally the largest department store in the world, according to Guinness.) E-mart became its own company in 2011.
Side note: The first department store in Korea was built in 1930 by Mitsukoshi, a Japanese chain, during the Japanese occupation (1910-1945). (Mitsukoshi began as a kimono shop in 1693!) When Korea was liberated after WWII, the store became independent and changed its name to Donghwa department store. In 1963, it was purchased by the Samsung group and renamed Shinsegae (“New World”). Shinsegae separated from Samsung in 1991, though it was run by the daughter of Samsung’s founder.
Side side note: The oldest hotel in Korea is The Chosun Hotel, opened in 1914. It was purchased by Shinsegae and called the Shinsegae Chosun Hotel, but they joined The Westin Group in 1995 and it is now called the Westin Chosun Hotel (still owned by Shinsegae). This was the first hotel we stayed in upon arriving in Seoul, and where we returned for Christmas. Shinsegae also owns Starbucks Coffee Korea. You’ll see ads for the Westin Chosun and, frequently, find Starbucks shops in E-mart locations. Unfortunately, my local E-mart does not have the latter.
In case you are unfamiliar with the term, “hypermarket” refers to a large store that is both a supermarket and a department store. They’ve been around since the 1930s, but exploded in popularity during the 1980s and 90s thanks to Walmart, Kmart, and Target developing hypermarket versions of their stores.
I’m sure you are familiar, though, with the much-ballyhooed detrimental effect of hypermarkets on smaller neighborhood retailers. In 2012, Korea’s government sought to protect their mom-and-pop stores by introducing mandatory Sunday closings for their super- and hypermarkets (E-mart, Home Plus, Lotte Mart, Costco, etc). On the second and fourth Sundays each month, these stores must remain closed for the day. We learned about these closings the hard way, after driving down to E-mart and finding it dark and roped off. Assuming it was a holiday we were not aware of, we drove instead to Bi-Mart (a small grocery store nearby) and found it busier than usual. So maybe the closings work? I’m not sure. I haven’t seen any statistics on whether or not these closings are having an effect, aside from annoying shoppers.
E-mart reminds me a bit of Target, but with Korean flair. It is important to note that “Korean flair” is a key factor in E-mart’s success. Walmart moved into Korea in 1998, but after continuing losses sold all 16 of its stores to Shinsegae in 2006 to be revamped and reopened as E-mart locations. Koreans apparently were not very big fans of Walmart’s lack of emphasis on food or its bare-bones discount vibe. What little I’ve seen leads me to believe that Koreans want quality and service, and, sorry Walmart, but when I think “Walmart” I don’t follow that up with “quality and service.” In fact, some of the worst service I’ve ever encountered in my life has been at Walmart. I try to avoid the place myself.
Now that I think about it, most American retailers have pretty crappy service. Korea kicks us in the bootie when it comes to service in general. They still have full service gas stations here; we’ve yet to even get out of our car when fueling up. And even their “discount” retailers like E-mart are swarming with extremely polite and extremely helpful employees – people who act like they don’t mind at all when you pick up a bag of spaghetti noodles, not realizing one side is open, and proceed to drop a million noodle sticks all over the floor.
Anyway, our local E-mart is a few stories high, with parking and specialty shops on each level and the main store in the basement. Our E-mart is smaller and has a more provincial feel than other E-marts I’ve been to in larger cities. For example, ours has a coffee shop and a café, but the E-mart we stopped at in Busan had a Starbucks and an entire food court with at least a half dozen chain restaurants like Baskin Robbins and KFC. Ours also has a kids’ play zone (this is extremely important, and the reason I shop at E-mart and not Home Plus), a salon, some kind of health clinic, some kind of studio for home economic classes, a dry cleaner, and several stores-within-a-store for specialty items like camping gear, cosmetics, baby gear, watches, home goods. They’re all brand name mini-stores, but I’m afraid I can’t remember the names right now.
The main shopping level has about the same variety of items as Target, but with a larger share for grocery. The grocery section has a vibe that’s like ‘a modern take on a bustling outdoor market.’ Salespeople wearing shirts with product logos offer samples of their products. Other employees offer samples of fruits or yogurt or potato chips. Butchers shout out the daily prices for fish and meat. Employees also shout out veggie prices, and if they have a seasonal area (as they did for Lunar New Year), there’s usually somebody shouting there, as well. There’s a large meat department with various tanks of fresh seafood, usually massive crabs. There’s also a bakery and a tiny pizza shop. Last week, they introduced a new bulgogi pizza, and the constant stream of people walking through the store with fresh bulgogi pizzas made the entire place smell of delicious cooked meats. (And made hungry shoppers buy crap they didn’t need.)
I really like our E-mart excursions. We check the kids into the play zone (they love, love, love it – it has a climby thing with a slide and a ball pit with pneumatic tubes!), and then Aaron and I spend an hour or two wandering around, hungry, buying crap we don’t need.
We finish up with dinner in the café. It’s comfort food, at best, but very yummy. The kids’ plate has katsu, rice, french fries, canned fruit, shredded cabbage, and ice cream. Aaron and I usually get the katsu and omurice plate, with cabbage, kimchi, pickled radish, and seaweed soup. I mildly suspect we got a touch of food poisoning there last week, but whatevs. Still yummy.
And I’ll be going back next weekend for more.
