Established in 2014, emart24 has grown to over 5,500 stores in just seven years, earning the title of Korea’s fastest-growing convenience store.
Since then, the company has expanded outside of Korea. The Bangsar South store opened in Kuala Lumpur in 2021 and is the first of 300 stores to be launched in Malaysia over five years.
In Malaysia, emart24 aims to make the Korean retail experience accessible and affordable, while also redefining the typical convenience store experience. Snacks and drinks, grab-and-go meals, and beauty products imported from Korea stack the shelves. As they walk in, customers can unwind with delicious coffee or enjoy Korean street food and pastries within a unique atmosphere.
Business case
To emart24, it was clear from the very beginning that the local POS system they used for their Korean stores would not be suitable for their operations in Malaysia. This led the management team to look for an end-to-end system that would integrate the POS, ERP, and analytics, while also providing full control and visibility over their business processes.
The company started to assess the options on the market with clear requirements in mind. The new system would need to be:
- Unified. The ideal solution would help manage the whole business, from POS and store sales, to back office, to inventory, giving emart24 total visibility over its enterprise.
- Scalable. The system would need to be designed for growth, helping the business keep up with the opening of new outlets.
- Proven. The system would be required to have a proven track record and understand the challenges encountered by large retail businesses.
Solution
When emart24 explored the functionalities offered by LS Central, LS Retail’s unified commerce solution, they confirmed it matched all their requirements.
The company selected LS Central primarily because it’s unified. In LS Central, the POS, the ERP, and the retail, food, and hospitality functionalities are all included in one system, running in one database. LS Central is also unified across multiple industries in food and retail, meaning emart24 could run a full-scale convenience store, plus café, plus restaurant, as one, consistent brand.
“With a few options in hand, we decided to go with LS Retail due to their impressive track record,” says Yan Wee Wong, Head of IT at Emart24.
Local LS Retail partner Radiant Global was selected as the implementation partner due to their experience with implementing similar projects in Malaysia. The Radiant Global team managed to roll out the system in 30 stores and can’t wait to continue working with emart24 as they open new stores.
Radiant Global encountered some challenges when integrating a contactless payment solution from a third-party provider into the new system. “This feature was very important to us as we pride ourselves on providing the ultimate convenience to our customers,” says Wong. With hard work from all parties and thorough system testing to ensure the solution worked as intended, Radiant Global managed to solve the problem.
Benefits
By implementing LS Central, emart24 has gained control and flexibility throughout the whole enterprise. Here are some of the features they appreciate the most:
- They have a reliable, scalable solution to manage their whole chain, and can expand easily.
- They can manage food preparation, kitchen, recipes, and table service within the same software solution they use for their retail business.
- They can stay on top of their KPIs and make smart business decisions thanks to the system’s reporting and analytics.
- They sped up the checkout process significantly with self-checkout registers.
- They can foster customer loyalty by easily managing prices, discounts, and campaigns.
emart24 is currently working on integrating the solution with their logistics partners’ warehouse management system so that stock gets to the store faster. The company also continuously seeks improvement by implementing innovative features to enhance the shopping experience.
With Radiant Global as the right IT partner to support them, and LS Central as the right technology, emart24 can continue their journey to becoming a crowd favorite in Malaysia.
