By Kim Young Deok and Lee Jihae 

A retail extravaganza designed to boost nationwide consumption sentiment depressed by the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) will run from June 26 to July 12.

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups on June 18 announced that about 2,000 entities including major corporations, online shopping malls and small businesses nationwide will participate in the government-led event titled Korea All-together Sale. 

Events to boost consumer sentiment will mainly require no physical contact due to COVID-19. Gachi Sapshida (Let's Buy Together), a platform selling products made by small businesses and the self-employed, will offer discounts of up to 87%.

A variety of online sales is slated, including by eight online traditional markets offering about 1,000 products at 10% off.

"Live Commerce," an online real-time event, is set for July 1-3 on the mobile platforms Naver Selective (https://selective.naver.com/style) and "Let's Buy Together" (https://v.dongbanmall.com/main). The broadcast will feature daily sections, each an hour long, divided into food lifestyle, fashion and beauty, and IT household appliances.

The government will run sales booths for items produced by small companies and business owners from the cities of Busan and Daegu from June 26-28, Jeonju and Cheongju from July 3-5, Changwon and Seoul from July 10-12. Shoppers can purchase goods from these sellers via their smartphones using the QR codes of items.

Minister of SMEs and Startups Park Young-sun on June 17 told a news briefing that the upcoming event "will set and establish K-sale, a new model for boosting consumption, in the wake of K-pop and K-quarantine."

For more information about the sale, click the following link: http://ksale.org/index.asp

kyd1991@korea.kr