April 25, 2024

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[THE INVESTOR] Doota Duty Free, owned by Doosan Group, announced on Dec. 1 that all its stores will close at midnight, instead of having different business hours that run until 2 a.m, possibly due to reduced Chinese travelers.

With an owl as its symbol, Doota promoted itself as the first and only downtown “overnight” duty-free store that stayed open into the late hours when it started operations in May.

“Over the last six months, we have reviewed work hours by floors and days of the week, and concluded that it will be more effective to have unified business hours to minimize confusion among customers and further consolidate our identity as a late-night duty-free store,” explained Doosan.

This is an attempt to improve its profitability, as Doota Duty Free has not been able to turn to black despite the recent increase in daily revenue from 600 million won (US$510,000) to 700 million won, according to industry sources.

When Doosan got the license for a downtown duty-free store in November, when the construction-heavy group that desperately needed a new source of growth, it was expected to be a cash cow that could generate up to 800 billion won a year.

After six months, however, Doota’s performance has been the slowest among all the newly launched downtown duty-free stores, posting 10.4 billion won revenue and 16 billion won operating loss in the first half of 2016. It has not yet disclosed its third-quarter earnings.

By Hwang You-mee (glamazon@heraldcorp.com)