Major Korean fashion e-commerce platform Musinsa will open a Musinsa Store and a Musinsa Standard location in Shanghai in December, accelerating its expansion into the Chinese offline retail market.

Musinsa Standard, the platform's modern basic casualwear brand, will open a flagship store in mid-December on Huaihai Road, known as one of the major shopping districts among the younger generation in the city, with more than 500,000 daily visitors.

The new store will span 1,300 square meters, making it Musinsa Standard's third-largest offline location after the ones in Daegu and Seoul's Hannam-dong. The Shanghai flagship will also connect with the brand's flagship store on China's online retail platform Tmall, which opened earlier this month, to provide an integrated online-to-offline shopping experience.

The Shanghai location is especially significant as it will be Musinsa's first overseas offline store. The company plans to expand its offline business throughout China, starting with Shanghai, a city that leads China's fashion and lifestyle trends due to its concentrated, young consumer base.

At the end of the year, Musinsa Store, the company's multibrand select shop, will also debut on Shanghai's Anfu Road. Often compared to Seoul's Seongsu-dong for its vibrant cluster of flagship stores and stylish pop-ups from global brands, Anfu Road is considered one of the city's trendiest shopping destinations.

The new Musinsa Store aims to serve as a global hub connecting Chinese trendsetters with Musinsa's partner brands.

Beginning with Shanghai, Musinsa plans to open more than 100 stores across China within the next five years. By the first half of next year, three new stores are set to open in Hangzhou as well as Shanghai's East Nanjing Road and Xujiahui shopping districts. The company aims to surpass 1 trillion won ($712.7 million) in combined online and offline sales in China by 2030.

"Next year, we plan to rapidly expand offline stores in southern China, where Korean products and K-fashion brands are already popular," a company official said in a press release.

"We will continue strengthening the online and offline infrastructure so our partner brands can achieve sustainable growth not only in China but also in the global market."

Musinsa to open 2 new stores in Shanghai - The Korea Times