Hanjin's Hoottown targets fandom shoppers with delivery discounts of up to 9,000 won

Hanjin is expanding its shipping discount service to target consumers who buy K-pop merchandise and character goods directly from overseas. As more shoppers make repeat cross-border purchases centered on specific interests or fandoms, the company is moving to win customers with benefits tailored to small, lightweight items.

Hanjin announced Friday that it has converted the Fandom Ticket feature on its global consumer-to-consumer overseas shopping platform Hoottown from a pilot program into a permanent service.

Fandom Ticket lets users verify their affiliation with a particular fandom — a favorite artist or character, for example — and receive shipping-fee discounts at no extra charge. The service is aimed primarily at shoppers who frequently buy small, light items from abroad, such as photo cards, postcards and character merchandise.

Hanjin took note of growing demand for Japanese character goods and K-pop merchandise. The company said interest in fandom-specific shipping benefits has risen alongside a broader surge in direct purchases of Japanese products, driven by the weak yen and the popularity of subculture content.

Fandom Ticket applications on Hoottown rose 19.8 percent year on year, and shipments made through the service accounted for 12.4 percent of all forwarding orders. According to Hanjin, a significant share of customers who obtained a ticket continued to use the service every month.

Requests to create discount benefits for additional characters also kept coming in. As domestic demand for popular Japanese characters such as Pokémon and Chiikawa grew, inquiries submitted through Hoottown's official communication channels asking for new fandom categories increased more than 80 percent from the service's early days.

In response, Hanjin expanded the Fandom Ticket lineup to 29 categories, reflecting consumer demand identified during the pilot phase.

The categories cover K-pop acts including BTS, Seventeen, Plave, aespa and Enhypen, as well as the anime series "Jujutsu Kaisen" and the character Nongdam Gom. The scope also extends to product lines with a consistent following, such as Tesla auto parts and specialty camping gear.

Discount benefits are provided on a regular monthly basis. Fandom Ticket holders receive 18 coupons per month — 16 shipping-fee discount coupons and two return-shipping discount coupons — along with a 12 percent discount applicable to express delivery.

Using the coupons, shoppers can save up to 9,000 won on an average shipping fee of 33,000 won ($25) for a 2-kilogram overseas purchase. The structure is designed to direct the most benefit to buyers of small, light items, for whom shipping costs represent a relatively larger share of the total price.

Fandom Ticket is valid on all country routes where Hoottown operates forwarding hubs. Each account may register one Fandom Ticket, and users whose preferred category is not listed can submit a request through a dedicated feature to have it added.

The service also supports sharing a ticket with another user and changing a registered category through a one-on-one inquiry function.

Through Fandom Ticket, Hanjin aims to go beyond standard overseas forwarding and strengthen services tailored to individual consumer interests. The strategy combines fandom-specific benefits with its existing forwarding model — receiving goods from overseas retailers and shipping them to domestic customers — to build a base of repeat users.

"We revamped the pilot Fandom Ticket into a permanent service to reflect the trend of 'digging consumption,' where shoppers dive deep into their personal interests," a Hoottown official said. "We will continue to strengthen the platform's competitiveness, drawing on Hanjin's global logistics infrastructure, so that domestic consumers can access overseas products more quickly and at more reasonable shipping rates."