Currently, there are more than 6,000 unstaffed stores in Seoul alone. This fact poses two important questions: First, what is the reason for an increase in stores that are completely self-service? Second, will unstaffed retail stores succeed unconditionally once they open?

A tour of Seoul, Korea reveals many unstaffed ice cream shops. Famous ice cream franchise Baskin Robbins announced in December 2021 that it will open an unstaffed store in Seoul.

The advent of the fourth industrial revolution, with artificial intelligence (AI), SMART skills, and digital systems, issued the trend toward unstaffed stores, offering several benefits including a decrease in labor costs.

As the minimum wage continues to increase, labor costs also increase.

In the case of unstaffed stores, however, labor costs completely disappear.

Another major benefit of self-service stores is the increase in customer convenience, which attracts more investors and new proprietors.

From the customers’ perspective, those who do not enjoy interacting with staff can shop more comfortably with the comfort of maintaining their privacy.

Finally, the Covid-19 pandemic added another dimension to the benefits of unstaffed stores: less human contact.

Many stores were negatively impacted financially due to Covid-19 as social distancing rules were extended and people avoided close contact with consumers.

Customers can go into an unstaffed store without the worry of unnecessary interactions.

Due to such benefits from both a provider and consumer perspective, the number of unstaffed ice cream shops has increased fivefold in four years in South Korea.

The total number of people who own unstaffed stores is now 424,004,000, which has shown an increase for 32 consecutive months.

People can visit unstaffed retail stores without time restrictions because those shops are often open 24 hours a day.

They are able to browse the shop slowly and comfortably because there is no staff to serve them.

Since some people are uncomfortable making small talk with store employees, an unstaffed store is a relaxing experience for them, and not the subject of marketing or persuasion ploys.

On the other hand, these stores do present some disadvantages as people can encounter problems such as difficulty working the kiosk.

In addition, most of the unstaffed stores are unable to take cash; therefore, customers must only use credit cards.

When asked the reason why an owner of an unstaffed shop decided to open his shop, he said he used to run a 24/7 convenience store, but with increasing minimum wage, it was no longer profitable.

He began thinking of alternatives for operating a shop without the ongoing cost of rising wages.

In addition to this, he did not want to dedicate much time to running the shop since he had an alternative primary job.

For these reasons, he decided to reopen the shop as an unstaffed store utilizing developed technologies.

With these advances, he was able to solve the issues mentioned above.

The owner also shared several concerns. .

First, unstaffed stores result in the limited sale of products and fewer profits, as many products require staff assistance.

Theft is also a problem. Since there is no staff supervision, it is difficult to prevent stealing.

Last, adolescents come into shops and linger for hours without buying products, which deters people from entering the stores and obstructs business.

The JoongAng Daily introduced some solutions for owners.

First, proprietors can install monitoring systems, which will quickly inform them when products get damaged.

Second, to prevent theft and increase security, stores can implement identity verification and closed-circuit television (CCTV) equipment.

Finally, to improve their profits, owners can analyze their customer’s movements while in the store and adapt this to marketing strategies.

As technology continues to develop, unstaffed shops will continue to increase.

They will provide a more diverse range of products and services.

We cannot avoid these changes, so pursuing the best strategies for operating unstaffed stores for both consumers and owners is essential.

Furthermore, for future references, we should consider the positive and negative effects on consumers, owners, and society and pursue the way everyone benefits from unstaffed retail stores.

Hakyung Song

Grade 10

Branksome Hall Asia