Small business sales are already seeing an uptick a week after South Korea rolled out its stimulus coupon program, with data from July 21 to 27 showing noticeable gains, according to figures released Monday.
A card sales analysis from Korea Credit Data showed that optical shops saw the biggest jump, with sales surging nearly 57 percent from the previous week.
Fashion and clothing stores followed with a 28.4 percent increase. Noodle restaurants were up 25.5 percent, foreign language academies 24.2 percent, pizza shops 23.7 percent, sushi restaurants 22.4 percent, beauty salons 21.2 percent, and sports equipment retailers 19.9 percent.
“The stimulus coupon policy is already having a positive effect on small business revenues,” said Kang Ye-won, head of data at KCD.
The analysis was based on transaction data from over 382,000 small business locations nationwide.
However, not all sectors saw a boost; sales in the service industry dropped 3 percent from the previous week.
KCD said the extreme summer heat likely discouraged consumer activity in the service industry, despite expectations for higher demand during the July vacation season. Still, compared to the same period last year, service-related sales were up 5.1 percent.
By region, the biggest gains came from South Gyeongsang Province with a 9.4 percent increase, followed by North Jeolla Province at 7.5 percent, Gangwon Province at 6.6 percent, South Chungcheong Province and Ulsan both at 5.8 percent, and Daegu at 5.7 percent.
In contrast, sales declined in Seoul and Jeju Island, down 4 percent and 0.8 percent, respectively.
As of Thursday last week, 11 days after the program began, about 45.5 million people, roughly 90 percent of the population, had applied for the coupons, according to the Ministry of the Interior and Safety.
The total value of distributed coupons reached 8.24 trillion won ($5.95 billion).
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