Why Have Policies to Support Small and Medium Sized Retailers not Been Successful in South Korea?

Abstract

Purpose: Support policies for small and medium-sized retailers (SMSRs) have been promoted in various ways over the past 20 years, but they are generally regarded as unsuccessful. The purpose of this study is to analyze the process and impact of policy changes, identify the reasons for the lack of success, and explore policy alternatives. Research design, data and methodology: This study explored major policies in various categories such as the retail industry, traditional markets, and Micro-Enterprises from the mid-1990s to the present. It also analyzed the short- and long-term impacts of major policies at the retail format level like SMSRs, using data from Statistics Korea's service industry survey. Results: This research found that sudden shifts in policy philosophy conflicted with the existing market structure and reduced the effectiveness of policies. It also found that policies aimed at improving competitiveness at the SMSRs-level had some effect, while polices aimed at supporting expenses at the individual store-level were difficult to achieve their intended purpose. Conclusions: The failure of the policy to support SMSRs is fundamentally due to the late response and conflicts between policies. It was also not successful due to the policy's focus on individual store-level expenses and maintaining employment rather than structural improvements of SMSRs format. © The Author(s) This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://Creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.