Korean car sales will be allowed following the introduction of imported cars at the end of March. Accordingly, there is a growing interest in seeing sales channels of Hyundai Kia, Renault Samsung,

According to the distribution industry on February 27, GS Home Shopping plans to add the automobile sales and freight forwarding business to the business purpose at the regular general shareholders` meeting to be held on March 16. GS Home Shopping plans to revise its Articles of Incorporation as it becomes possible to sell domestic cars at TV home shopping starting next month.

A representative from GS Home Shopping stated, "The purpose of the business is not to start this business right now," he said. "There are many possibilities open, and the automobile sales business is approaching future business."

So far, TV home shopping has been able to sell rental cars such as imported cars, leases and rentals, but sales of domestic cars have been banned due to the insurance supervision regulation.

If domestic home car sales are allowed to be included in TV home shopping, the combined sales of cars and insurance business will be released, which could damage insurance sales.

Currently, TV home shopping companies are registering as a non-life insurance agency and selling insurance products. However, when the controversy was raised against the prohibition of domestic tea sales, the 5th Regulatory Reform Ministerial Meeting in May 2016 decided to allow the sale of domestic tea to TV home shopping.

The Financial Services Commission also revised its insurance supervision regulations in March last year, and has been making sales.

The system barrier has been broken, but TV home shopping companies such as CJ, Hyundai and Lotte are still reluctant to sell domestic cars. Each company has a common position, saying, "We are considering selling domestic cars but it has not been concretely confirmed."

The reason why the industry is not active in selling domestic cars is because of the opposition from the automobile industry trade unions and sales agents.

Last month, the sales committee of the KCTU Hyundai Motor Chamber announced that it had delivered to each subcommittee its policy to block domestic sales of domestic cars. They are worried that the sales of domestic cars will drop if they sell domestic cars at TV home shopping, and jobs will decrease.

A specialist from the TV home shopping industry said, "The price of imported cars is fluctuating according to the distribution process, but the price of domestic cars is not very volatile," he said. "If you sell domestic cars at TV home shopping, you will have customers who do not buy products at your dealers."

By Park Min Yeong ironlung@


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