Musinsa is opening South Korea’s largest offline select shop, Musinsa Megastore Seongsu, in Seongsu-dong, Seoul, and is speeding up its offline expansion. It plans to develop the site into a key offline hub representing Seongsu-dong by offering a complex space that combines content and food and beverage with a focus on fashion and beauty.

Musinsa held a media tour of Musinsa Megastore Seongsu in Seongsu-dong on the afternoon of April 23. The tour was led by Kwon A-young (권아영), who is in charge of marketing and pop-ups in Musinsa’s offline commerce division. Kwon introduced the store as an offline pinnacle that goes beyond a simple retail outlet and contains the essence of fashion and beauty that Musinsa pursues.

Shop-in-shop, zoning and beauty zone reshape the space from existing select shops.

Musinsa Megastore Seongsu, which opens on April 24, spans from basement level 1 to the fourth floor, with a total size of 2,000 pyeong. Musinsa plans to move beyond the existing concept of select shops in South Korea’s fashion industry and solidify its position as a fashion and beauty hub that combines curation functions. Another differentiator is that it also includes content and food and beverage stores.

About 1,000 brands are gathered at Megastore Seongsu. Musinsa also strengthened its O4O (Online for Offline) system, which reflects real-time data from its online platform in offline stores. The store is organized around specialized concept stores such as Girls (women), Kicks (shoes), Run (running), and Bag & Cap Club (accessories). It also broadened its customer base from those in their teens and 20s to those in their 10s to 40s. Musinsa’s strategy is to expand its customer base to family groups through Megastore Seongsu.

The first floor is designed to show how Megastore Seongsu is organized, featuring areas such as Concept, shop-in-shop and Kicks. Entering the first floor, a Franticservice pop-up and a New Era x Kyoka collaboration pop-up stood out on the left. The first floor is largely made up of Girls and Kicks.

In the core space next to the central escalator on each floor, Musinsa placed Kicks shoe areas by concept to emphasize its identity rooted in the phrase 'a place with a lot of shoe photos'. This Kicks layout is operated differently by floor concept across basement level 1, the first, second and fourth floors, excluding the third floor.

A shop-in-shop structure on the first, second and fourth floors is another feature of Megastore Seongsu. Selected brands are built out as separate spaces within curved objects to highlight each brand’s individuality. On the first floor, Ronron, Low Classic Lc, The Barnnet and Glony are set up as shop-in-shops. The second floor includes As On and Miseki Seoul. The fourth floor includes Welter Experiment, Adidas Performance and The North Face in the same format.

Musinsa plans to run its shop-in-shop brands mainly around indie brands that are popular online and offline, and to rotate some brands every three months. Global popular brands such as Adidas and Nike will be run as fixed shop-in-shops.

Payment options also reflect demand from overseas travelers. Musinsa placed self-checkout POS systems on the first, second and third floors and considered tax refunds and on-site payments. The company said that while existing offline stores emphasized a structure in which customers pay online and receive delivery, Megastore Seongsu was designed with foreign customers in mind who want to pay for products immediately and take them with them.

Basement level 1 is centered on Work & Formal, Bag & Cap Club and Kicks. Along with a shoe zone that collects leather shoes, casual shoes and work boots, the store introduced a 'zoning' approach for the first time, grouping items by collection such as shirts rather than by brand. While existing select shops divided space by brand, Megastore Seongsu is organized by product group and style to set customer flows.

The basement floor also includes content elements. Going down the escalator, there is a coin karaoke room that can be used for free, and next to it is a pop-up space for NCT WISH intellectual property content. Musinsa combined IP content and experiential elements to strengthen the store’s role as a stay-type space beyond a simple shopping venue.

The second floor puts a women’s concept at the forefront. It houses Girls, Bag & Cap Club, eyewear, Kicks focused on women’s shoes and boots, and Musinsa Beauty. The As On and Miseki Seoul shop-in-shops are also on the second floor.

In particular, the beauty zone on the second floor is one of the key spaces at Megastore Seongsu. Covering about 150 pyeong, it includes about 700 brands and 7,500 SKUs, along with a ranking zone that displays products by ranking like an online platform, and a lens store with an on-site optician. It also added event and service elements such as beauty gacha and a pouch zone for global member customers.

The third floor houses Musinsa Standard Seongsu E-ro. It is the second Musinsa Standard store in Seongsu-dong and consists of men, women, home and beauty categories. Reflecting the recent strength of the women’s category, it features configurations such as a seamless bra zone that are being shown offline for the first time. In the home category, items such as auxiliary batteries and mini fans aimed at global customers were also placed. Popular standard products such as Cool Standard and windbreakers are also highlighted.

The fourth floor consists of next outdoor and sports, Kicks focused on running, and a food garden. It also operates shop-in-shops such as Adidas Performance, The North Face and Welter Experiment, as well as a uniform marking service. It currently provides a paid marking service centered on soccer uniforms for the World Cup season, and plans to expand items later to baseball and basketball. In the Kicks area, running shoes such as Hoka and Brooks Running are displayed.

An food and beverage zone is also in place, with dining brands such as Cafe Fuglen, 29CM Food, Pizza Slice and Anheung Mao, and dessert brands such as Tteoksan, Jjuakjjuak and Gimbap Daejang. The addition of food and drink to fashion, beauty and content is seen as intended to increase the time customers spend in the store and enhance its appeal as a complex space.

Seongsu is a hub that concentrates Musinsa’s offline strategy.

Musinsa currently operates 75 stores in total, including Musinsa Store and Musinsa Standard. Megastore Seongsu is the second megastore after the Yongsan branch. Seongsu-dong already has existing outlets such as Musinsa Store Daelim Warehouse, Musinsa Standard Seongsu and Musinsa Kicks, and some have raised concerns about cannibalisation between stores. Musinsa’s position is that it will minimise this by differentiating target customers and product configurations. While the existing Daelim Warehouse store focused on women customers aged 18 to 25, Megastore Seongsu targets a wider age range and demand from family groups.

Musinsa Megastore Seongsu is expected to accommodate up to 350,000 people per month on average. Musinsa said expectations for the Seongsu hub are higher, considering that Megastore Yongsan’s maximum monthly average visitor count was about 250,000.

Megastore Seongsu is a symbolic store of Musinsa’s offline strategy that it has recently expanded. Since the start of this year, Musinsa has broadened touchpoints by rolling out various types of offline stores, including select shops and outlets, Musinsa Standard and category specialty stores. It recently opened Musinsa Store AK Plaza Suwon, its first offline select shop in the Gyeonggi region, and also opened the Shinsegae Department Store Gwangju branch, its first Musinsa Standard store in the Honam region.

Building another large hub in Seongsu-dong is also an extension of that strategy. Seongsu already has existing stores such as Musinsa Store Daelim Warehouse, Musinsa Standard Seongsu and Musinsa Kicks. With the addition of Megastore Seongsu and Standard Seongsu E-ro, the Seongsu area has become the most densely concentrated region for Musinsa’s offline strategy. Musinsa plans to reduce concerns about overlap between stores by differentiating target customers and product configurations by store.

Megastore Seongsu also shows that Musinsa, a fashion-focused platform, is expanding categories such as beauty. Musinsa has recently increased related hiring in line with its expansion of the beauty business and is also working to strengthen offline beauty sales and retail functions. Placing a large-scale beauty zone at the forefront is interpreted as showing an intention to develop beauty into another key category after fashion.

In terms of location, attention is also on links to Musinsa’s ongoing 'Seoul Forest Project'. Musinsa has been increasing its presence in the Seongsu and Seoul Forest commercial district by rolling out women’s fashion stores, lifestyle stores and specialty select shops around Atelier-gil near Seoul Forest. It recently increased the number of offline hubs in the Seoul Forest Project to 12 by opening 'Musinsa Run Seoul Forest' and 'Musinsa Bag & Cap Club Seoul Forest'. Megastore Seongsu is expected to serve as the largest hub and anchor tenant in the broader Seongsu and Seoul Forest area.