Abstract

Purpose - It has been argued that the regulations restricting entry and opening hours of General Super Markets and Super Super Markets have not been as effective as expected. In contrast, the win-win item scheme that appeared recently has the advantage that it could raise the effectiveness of the system in that win-win items are in principle resigned on the basis of bilateral agreements. This study analyzes the win-win item agreement made between Homeplus at Hap-jung and small traditional markets to examine the practical effectiveness of the win-win item scheme. While existing literature studying the regulatory effects have concentrated on the restrictions around store entry or opening hours of large retailers, it can be said that there have been few empirical studies on the effect of win-win items agreement with large retailers. Research design, data, and methodology - Homeplus at Hap-jung made a win-win items agreement with nearby small traditional market traders in 2013. In accordance with this voluntary agreement, Homeplus started by limiting its sales to 15 win-win items. The survey was conducted through one-on-one interviews, April 14 to May 2, 2014, by a professional public opinion research agency. The interviews were targeted at small business retailers in the nearby traditional market. We divided the traditional markets near Homeplus at Hap-jung where the win-win item agreement was achieved into two groups, win-win item agreement markets and non win-win item agreement markets, to compare the performance difference between the two groups. Results - To determine the change in sales of the 15 win-win items, we examined the performance difference between the two groups using two criteria (compared with similar items, and compared to sales volume a year ago). The results show that the individual sales of win-win items in the win-win item agreement markets are more likely to increase than in the non win-win item agreement markets. Total sales volume of individual stores in the agreement markets also showed a more significant increase compared to a year ago than those in non win-win item agreement markets. Conclusions - Contrary to the existing retail regulations that have one-sided and uniform characteristics, it can be pointed out that the win-win item scheme has the effect of increasing the success of the system itself because it is done on the basis of mutual agreement between General Super Markets and traditional markets. The empirical results of this study can be said to support this conjecture. For the successful settlement of a win-win items agreement, the following points should be reviewed. First, it requires a great effort from the selection process of win-win items in order to improve the effectiveness of the agreement. Second, the existing General Super Markets customers should be introduced to the traditional markets or small shops to increase the sales of win-win items. Therefore, voluntary effort is essentially required from the traditional markets to engage customers.