Duty-Free Luxury Fire Sale Draws Huge Crowds
04 June, 2020
Duty-free operators have been permitted to offer their products through normal retail channels in a bid to help them weather at least a number of the losses from deserted airports and a dearth of international travelers.
Shinsegae International on Wednesday unloaded its stockpiles of duty-free luxury products on its online shopping site and the majority of them sold out less than four hours.
It offered handbags and leather accessories by Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta, Saint Laurent and Valentino at 10 to 50 percent discounts. A Bottega Veneta clutch bag cost W1.06 million and a Balenciaga tote bag W1.33 million (US$1=W1,218).
People wait in line to get a restricted edition of luxury sneakers in front of a department store in Seoul on Wednesday.
Because of the overwhelming interest, the S.I. Village website crashed. Shinsegae said some 15,000 people tried to access the web site simultaneously when the sale started at 10 a.m., triggering the server to overload. "We didn’t expect such a huge amount of people," a spokesman said.
But by 2 p.m., around 90 percent of the products have been sold nonetheless.
Lotte Duty Free plans to unload its inventory on June 26 at both outlets plus some department store branches. Shilla Duty Free can do the same both online and offline as soon as the end of the month.
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