Heat Wave Keeping Stores Open Late

“Seize the heat wave!”

With the rising number of night shoppers unable to fall asleep due to the prolonged heat, the distribution businesses have launched a tropical night marketing that targets them.

Major large marts such as Shinsegae E-Mart, Samsung Tesco Homeplus, and Lotte Mart have extended their business hours by one or two hours and have prepared various events for midnight shoppers.

E-Mart has extended its opening hours of 30 stores in major cities by an hour and has opened them until 12 midnight.

E-Mart has also changed its music played in the late night stores from Korean and foreign pop songs to beach songs and Latin songs that resemble the summer. Such stores also sell instant food items such as chicken, skewered food, laver rice and sushi, which were formerly sold until 9:00 p.m., but are now available until 10:30 p.m.

Lotte Mart will also extend its business hours of 45 stores until 12:00 midnight or 1:00 a.m. by August 27.

Lotte Mart will also hold a promotion event for scary films on DVD to cool the summer nights, selling around 20 DVD titles of scary movies for 9,800 won.

Major home shopping companies such as GS, CJ, and Hyundai have also either extended their broadcasting hours at night by an hour or concentrated on selling items during the night hours.

An official at a home shopping company said, “Most companies will place items such as clothes, underwear, diet products, cosmetics, and other goods for ladies on sale during the late night hours until the middle of the month to target female night shoppers.”

Meanwhile, summer items like air conditioners, electronic fans, beer, and ice cream are currently great consumer hits.

As of last month, the sales percentage of LG electronics added 14 percent to the record it held during the same month last year, which was the highest record for the quantity of air conditioner sold.

Particularly between July 29 and August 3 when the rains stopped and the heat began, the number of air conditioners sold jumped 350 percent compared to the same period last year.

The sales of Hauzen, the air conditioner of Samsung Electronics, tripled this month compared to last year.

The beer producers said that the supply of beer increased by 20 or 30 percent this month and predicted that such a trend will be maintained for a period of time if the heat persists.

jsonhng@donga.com mikemoon@donga.com