Article 04 · Research · 2026.08

Online had a channel, stores didn't

Last issue's Weekly said outbound brands have a channel and inbound brands don't seem to. This time we checked how far that channel actually runs. China really does subsidize its companies' participation in overseas trade fairs, and fairs held in Korea are on the list. But we checked seven consumer brands that opened stores in Korea recently, one by one, and not one of them came in through that channel. Sellers trying to go online instead of opening a store, though, already had a different channel.

The scheme is real

China's commerce ministry and provincial governments run several programs that fund companies going to overseas trade fairs. The Central Fund for Foreign Trade and Economic Development, Guangdong's "Yuemao Quanqiu" and subsidies for self-organized overseas fairs in Xiamen and Wenzhou are the names involved. Group together at least ten companies, or hit a minimum booth area, join or run an overseas trade fair, and the government covers 50 to 100 percent of the booth fee, freight and airfare (published on a commerce-ministry affiliated site, 31 March 2025).

Korea isn't left off that list either. The "priority overseas trade fair" lists that Guangdong, Zhejiang and Fujian's commerce departments publish each year do carry Korea-hosted B2B fairs, including Seoul's international food show. Chinese companies that join those fairs as a group do get the booth-fee and airfare support.

Where it doesn't line up

But what this scheme covers stops at the cost of showing up. Booth fees, freight, airfare — all of it is the cost of flying out for a few days of a trade fair and flying back. Rent, fit-out and the permits it takes to open a shop appear nowhere in the scheme. Standing at a booth is subsidized; opening a standing store next to that booth is a separate matter.

Korea's side doesn't have anything filling that gap either. Invest KOREA and the Seoul Business Agency are limited to foreign direct investment — setting up a subsidiary, site selection, tax breaks, matching investors. No public program that groups foreign consumer brands and places them into Korean retail or pop-up space turned up. "Attracting investment" and "finding a brand somewhere to open a store" turned out to be different things.

So we checked, one by one, how the consumer brands that actually opened stores in Korea recently got in.

The seven took different routes, but the same kind of route. Setting up a subsidiary on their own money, acquiring an existing operator's license, or signing an individual store or franchise deal. None of the seven came in through a government-built trade-fair channel.

Direct entry itself hasn't slowed down, though. Four of the seven confirmed cases cluster in 2026. With no government channel to use, brands with capital keep coming in anyway.

How fast they moved after getting in, though, wasn't the same. Chagee scaled from its first Seoul store to five stores within a month. ChaPanda, by contrast, was reported to be posting strong daily sales — 12,000 yuan per overseas store — while holding off on opening more. Direct entry didn't mean the same pace for everyone: some brands scaled aggressively, others held to a single store while watching.

Online was a different story

That's as far as the store-opening side goes. But the same collection also turned up a channel already built for sellers trying to go online instead. Lianlian Digital, a Chinese payments and logistics agent, connected to Coupang's "Rocket Growth" onboarding and payment flow for local stores (1 July 2026). No subsidiary, no acquired license — go through one private vendor that handles payment and logistics, and goods can go up on a Korean online storefront.

This channel wasn't built by any government. A payments agent turned it into a business. But the result looks similar — a way into the Korean market that doesn't require setting up a subsidiary on your own capital already existed, just not on the store-opening side.

From here on, this is our reading of it. Opening a store, judging by the seven cases confirmed so far, seems to require the capital to set up a subsidiary or acquire an operator's license. Online, going through one payments agent may be enough, so individual or smaller sellers without that capital may be going online first rather than opening a store. If that holds, Korea's offline retail space may stay, for now, a place for brands with capital behind them. That said, if cases turn up of sellers who built a base online and then moved into a physical store, this picture changes.

Worth keeping in mind

• The store-opening side settled into three routes. All seven confirmed cases either set up a subsidiary directly, acquired an existing operator's license, or signed an individual distribution or franchise deal. None came in through a government channel that reached as far as a store.
• The online side ran on different terms — that was the interesting part. No subsidiary needed; a private vendor handling payment and logistics was already enough. Opening a store and going online turned out to sit on two different capital floors.
• We also looked at where Korea receives brands like these. Invest KOREA and the Seoul Business Agency handle subsidiary setup and investment consulting; nothing turned up that matches brands to stores.
• So there's one thing worth watching for in news of "support for overseas trade fairs." Whether it's a program that extends to opening a store, or one that stops at covering the booth fee, are two different things. As far as we've confirmed, it's the latter.

To sum up — China really does subsidize outbound trade-fair participation, and fairs held in Korea are on the list, but the support stops at the booth fee and never reaches the next step of opening a store. Korea's side has nothing filling that gap either, so the seven consumer brands that recently opened stores in Korea all came in on their own capital, and how fast they scaled after that varied. On the online side, a payments agent had already built a channel of its own. The same gap in the scheme got filled two ways — capital on the store side, a private payments agent on the online side — and that contrast is what stood out most to us in this round of observation.