IKEA in Korea Threatened With Closure Due to Heavy Traffic Concerns
I have to wonder if this is an attempt by competing Korean retailers to shutdown a foreign competitor? There are plenty of shopping areas in Korea with horrible traffic:
Swedish furniture retailer IKEA faces a business suspension here because of severe traffic congestion on roads surrounding its first mall, in Gwangmyeong, Gyeonggi Province.
The municipal city recently demanded IKEA to come up with a “dramatic breakthrough” by Wednesday, or the mall would be shut from Jan. 15.
The mall has operated since Dec. 18 under temporary approval. Gwangmyeong officials said there were no legal problems to withdrawing approval.
“People’s frustration caused by the congestion has reached boiling point,” said an official familiar with the case. “Not only drivers but also people living or working near the outlet are affected.” [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but IKEA has been under attack in Korea from even before they opened their doors.
Haters.
Koreans fall over themselves stampede trying to get to COSCO.
Even a low end place like E-Mart in Yangju had serious slow traffic along HWY 3 during the day so bad you wanted to take an M-88 recovery vehicle on a joy ride and clean up the highway…
Haters they are.
Q: How is a Gwangmyeong IKEA like a Songtan juicy bar?
A: Attention to increased trafficking put an official stop to customers purchasing big brown boxes they took home with expectations for hours of screwing.
Even Walmart didn’t think it was worth it to stick it out in Korea. Who in their right mind builds a giant Ikea on a freaking temporary permit?
I need a job as a consultant to these big companies trying to do business here… It would be quite simple.
“It would be quite simple.”
Hopefully, you consultation wouldn’t be entirely composed of “Noooooo!”
Hopefully, it would be more along the lines of not getting greedy… but getting a conected local partner to manage the legal and logistical maze while you concentrate on supply, merchandising, sales training, and marketing management.
As IKEA is the only supplier, there are plenty of ways to make sure the local partner is kept happy and motivated to keep things rolling while protecting the situation from him/them/it getting too greedy… and from getting Lonestarred.
So when are they going to shut down all the highways leading into/out of Seoul?