E-mart ready-meal line built on card payment data tops 140,000 in sales

A line of ready-meal products developed by Hyundai Card and E-mart using payment data has surpassed 140,000 units in cumulative sales within a year of its launch. Buoyed by the consumer response, the two companies plan to use fourth-quarter payment data to identify new restaurants and release follow-up products.

The five products in the "Peacock: Restaurants Verified by Hyundai Card Payment Data" line, launched last September, had sold more than 140,000 units in total through last month, according to financial industry sources Friday.

The flagship items are the uni-jjajangmyeon and yurimgi from Chinese restaurant Hongbok. Hongbok opened in Busan in 1958 before relocating to Seoul's Namdaemun Market in the late 1970s, where it became a regular haunt for nearby merchants and office workers.

Hyundai Card's Data Lab and E-mart had earlier pursued a project to identify hidden culinary gems using actual payment data rather than online restaurant reviews.

Working on the premise that restaurants frequently visited by local market vendors were likely to be genuinely good, the team analyzed the spending patterns of traditional-market merchant cardholders in Hyundai Card payment data from 2023 to 2024, which led them to Hongbok. Hongbok then collaborated with E-mart's product development unit, known as the "Secret Lab," to create the uni-jjajangmyeon and yurimgi ready meals.

The lineup also includes the black ramen from Ramura, a Japanese ramen specialist in Seongsu-dong that drew heavy MZ generation foot traffic, as well as chicken-skin gyoza and tare sauce from Yakitori Pano in Cheongdam-dong, a restaurant that ranked high among Hyundai Card premium members for both spending and return-visit rates.

The collaboration is regarded as a case study in turning card payment data into tangible product development and sales results. Behind it lies Hyundai Card's long-cultivated data-structuring capabilities. Since declaring itself a "digital company" in 2015, Hyundai Card has invested more than 1 trillion won ($747 million) in IT and AI, of which about 500 billion won went toward data structuring.

Building on that foundation, Hyundai Card operates "Domain Cosmos," a collaborative framework that allows its private-label credit card partners to run joint marketing campaigns without directly sharing raw data. To date, the system has supported more than 5,000 collaborative marketing initiatives targeting about 270 million members.

E-mart stands out as one of Hyundai Card's longest-running private-label credit card partners. Since launching the E-mart e-Card in 2015 — the first such card in South Korea — the two companies have expanded their collaboration beyond financial products into branding and data science.

From last year through the first half of this year, they ran 29 campaigns targeting about 11 million potential customers. By analyzing Hyundai Card members' spending patterns to make personalized product recommendations for E-mart shoppers, the campaigns raised E-mart's average monthly usage rate and spending per customer, the companies said.

The two are also running a "home appliance cashback" promotion that refunds up to 300,000 won on purchases of 500,000 won or more in electronics. Earlier collaborations included an E-mart-dedicated booth at Hyundai Card's cultural event "Da Vinci Motel," sponsorship of SSG Landers uniforms, and branding of a skybox at the baseball stadium.

The companies have also decided to make the ready-meal development project, originally conceived as a one-off, a regular initiative. "This is a collaboration model that goes beyond payment data analysis to deliver real product development and sales results," a Hyundai Card official said. "We will continue to expand data collaboration with our partners through Domain Cosmos."