CJ OnStyle launches 'Korean-style creator commerce' with end-to-end model

"We plan to expand creator commerce transaction volume 35-fold by 2030 compared with our first year of operations in 2025," said Seong Dong-hun, head of the platform division at CJ ENM's commerce unit.

CJ OnStyle held the Creator Commerce Festival Korea 2026 on Thursday at COEX in Seoul's Gangnam-gu, announcing a push to build a full-scale creator commerce market in South Korea. The company unveiled an end-to-end business model providing integrated support across the entire process — from product planning and content production to sales, logistics and customer service.

Creator commerce connects a creator's content and fandom to the full shopping journey, from product discovery through to purchase. A new consumption pattern has emerged in which shoppers discover products through content and buy based on a creator's expertise and trust — a model sometimes called "discovery-driven, relationship-based shopping." In North America, platforms such as LTK and ShopMy have grown by supporting creators in recommending products and monetizing their audiences.

Seong, who led Thursday's presentation, said the company aims to cultivate 100,000 commerce-focused creators by 2030 and raise creator commerce's share of mobile content commerce transaction volume from 9 percent in 2025 to 50 percent. Mobile content commerce transaction volume is a combined figure covering live, short-form and creator commerce.

The defining feature of the Korean model is that it goes beyond simply connecting creators with brands — it provides integrated support across every stage of the business. CJ OnStyle plans to develop creators into brand growth partners by combining more than 30 years of commerce expertise with video content production capabilities and data and AI technology.

CJ OnStyle will first plan products tailored to each creator's area of expertise and fandom profile. Collaboration will span entertainment and other fandom intellectual property tie-ups as well as high-involvement categories — fashion, beauty, living and children's products — where detailed product explanations and hands-on experience matter most.

For content production, the company will deploy more than 100 professional producers along with its mobile live-commerce operating capabilities. The plan is to co-develop live-commerce content intellectual property with creators based on their expertise and the goals of each collaboration, then convert that content directly into sales.

Data and AI will drive brand-creator matching. CJ OnStyle will use its own AI engine and domestic and international technology partnerships to analyze creators' SNS content and follower characteristics. Combining product information with actual purchase data will sharpen matching accuracy. The company will also use an AI content business platform it built in August to analyze content trends and automate short-form video production.

The entire end-to-end process comes together on ONTNER, a creator matching platform CJ OnStyle launched in September. ONTNER supports every step of a transaction — product search, matching, content production, sales, settlement, delivery and customer service. CJ OnStyle projected that its creator commerce transaction volume will grow roughly 3.3 times this year compared with the previous year, while the number of creators it works with will increase roughly 23-fold.

Thursday's media day also featured a guest talk session on the theme "A new market shaped by content: the future of creator commerce," with participants including Kim Do-hyun, a professor at Kookmin University's School of Business Administration; Park Hyun-sun, chief executive of La Vien; and Seong.

Kim said the influence of creators' expertise and trustworthiness on how consumers discover products and make purchasing decisions is growing. "For small and mid-sized brands, this will open new opportunities to acquire customers and expand their market," he said.

Park shared her experience of incorporating customer preferences identified through content into product planning and brand management. "Even overseas, we use content as a medium to understand local consumers' lifestyles and communicate our brand's competitive strengths," she said. She added that trust between creators and customers is essential, and that a solid platform like CJ OnStyle is needed to achieve it.