Online shopping list expanded to durable goods like furniture and electronic appliances in South Korea as COVID-19 outbreak fueled online purchasing power.

According to data study by CJ OliveNetworks on Thursday, online sales in Korea grew 38.9 percent on year in March, when virus surge was still at the peak. Sales at brick-and-mortar stores in contrast fell 19.0 percent.

Groceries were the primary driver in online shopping fever, soaring 84.6 percent in March from a year earlier. Fresh food purchase at offline stores grew 10 percent as cooking increased due to stay-at-home measures.

Online sales of household items, including personal hygiene products such as hand sanitizer and mask, jumped 66.9 percent on year. Those of books and music albums were up 43.2 percent, sports/leisure products 33.6 percent.

Shopping expanded to more on the durable list.

Online purchase of big electronics such as TV and refrigerator increased 31.4 percent and furniture 27.5 percent.

Offline retailers suffered. Clothing sales plunged 48.1 percent and sports/leisure product sales 34.9 percent. Sales at offline baby clothing and goods stores plummeted 40.0 percent.

The consumer spending study made by CJ OliveNetworks, IT service unit under retail-to-logistics giant CJ Group, is based on 600 million payment transaction data - 300 million online purchase data collected through its parcel delivery service affiliate CJ Logistics Corp. and 300 million credit card use data at offline stores gathered by Nice Zini Data, affiliate of local payment gateway service company Nice Payments.

By Lee Dong-in and Cho Jeehyun

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]