Gift certificates popular for holiday

Gift certificates issued by department stores have emerged as the most popular present for Chusok, Korea¡¯s autumn full moon festival, running ahead of such traditional items as beef ribs, yellow corbina fish and fruit baskets.

According to Lotte Department Store on Sept. 5, the sale of gift food packages amounting to 23 billion won for the preceding four days was far exceeded by gift certificates, which earned 35.5 billion won. The latter accounted for more than one-half (65 percent) of the whole turnover during the season`s gift category.

At the main Lotte store in Seoul the sale of beef ribs reached 900 million won and that of yellow corbina 350 million won, thus increasing the total sale of gift packages in kind to 3.5 billion won or 16 percent over the previous year`s proceeds of 3 billion won. Gift certificates rose 64 percent this year to 5 billion won over last year`s 2.8 billion won.

Hyundai Department Store sold 10 billion worth of gift packages of edibles, with the sale of gift certificates worth 19 billion won accounting for 66 percent of total sales. The portion of gift certificates surged to upward of 50 percent over last year`s figure of 40 percent.

Park Joong-Hyun sanjuck@donga.com