Musinsa Standard reports 44% sales jump at regional stores

Musinsa Standard, the casual wear brand of fashion platform Musinsa, said Tuesday that its regional stores have posted double-digit sales growth.

Combined sales at eight stores outside Greater Seoul — excluding the Cheonan Asan location that opened this month — rose about 44 percent year-on-year in the January–August period. More than 4.5 million people, or about 17 percent of the roughly 27 million total visitors to all Musinsa Standard stores during the same period, visited the regional locations. The stores achieved 125 percent of their sales targets.

At the Seomyeon store in Busan, foreign customers accounted for about 30 percent of purchases, up 11 percentage points from a year earlier. The brand attributed the increase to a broader spread of inbound tourist destinations across the country, which has drawn foreign shoppers to stores outside Seoul.

Musinsa Standard currently operates nine of its 43 domestic stores in regional cities. It opened its first regional location on Dongseong-ro in Daegu in September 2023, then launched three stores in Busan between December of that year and July 2024. Last year it expanded into Daejeon and Cheongju, and this year it opened a store in Gwangju.

The brand has also rolled out locally rooted marketing tied to regional brands. The Cheonan Asan store, which opened Friday, collaborated with Halmoni Hakwha Hodogwaja, a well-known local walnut cake brand from Cheonan. The Gwangju store partnered with Judy Mary, a popular local dessert brand, to release a limited-edition dessert, and produced a Gwangju special edition of its brand magazine, Musinsa Standard Paper.

Musinsa Standard plans to open additional stores on Jeju Island and in Changwon in South Gyeongsang Province in the second half of the year, offering in-store experiences tailored to each region's character. "Three years of consistent offline investment outside Greater Seoul have produced meaningful results in both sales and foot traffic at our regional stores," a company official said. "We will continue opening locations in major regional cities to bring vitality to local commercial districts."