A robot makes drip coffee at this year‘s Cafe Show Seoul exhibition. Photo by Cafe Show Seoul via The Korea Herald/Asia News Network
SEOUL — At this year’s annual Seoul International Cafe Show which took place earlier this month, automation and smart devices such as drip coffee-making robots enjoyed the spotlight.
“From smart coffee roasters to drip coffee-making robots, there were various opportunities to get a taste of the ‘smart cafe’ experience,” one official at the event said.
These are the latest sign of automation and a demographic shift in South Korea where cashier-free stores have increasingly been popping up on the streets. Over the last few years, retailers small and large have been adopting self-checkout systems, also known as kiosks, or even going completely staff-free to save labor costs and keep stores open late into the night.
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Nearly 1,700 “hybrid” stores, which rotate between having staff in the store and going unmanned, are currently in operation between the four major local convenience store chains — CU, GS25, 7-Eleven and E-Mart 24. With over 47,000 convenience stores in the country, the figure might not be so staggering for now. But the number of hybrid stores has been rapidly rising in recent months, according to E-Mart 24.
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“After we announced the decision to expand hybrid stores in July, we have been rolling out the system. Nearly 80 percent of our stores are not open 24 hours a day,” one representative at E-Mart 24 said.
Boasting over 5,700 locations in total, the convenience store chain, operated by Shinsegae Group, saw the number of hybrid stores jump from some 150 earlier this year to around 700 as of late October.
