The Law of Scissors and Smart Management

“Designer brands for less every day!” 
It is a slogan of advertisement from the luxury discount store Ross (Dress for less). These discount stores are flourishing thanks to consumer preference for luxury fashion products.

Similar to a retail business like this, designer products in Dongdaemun market are sold well at lower prices. We have described this shopping behavior as the performance of triangle management of Dongdaemun market merchants such as fast, good and cheap.

 As well as, such marketing strategy of Dongdaemun market merchants can be explained by ‘the law of scissors.’

The bigger the scissors, the better it cuts. Likewise, the higher the quality of a designer product, the lower the price of the product, the more it sells. The larger the gap between the quality and the price of the product, the greater the sales volume.


 As the rule of scissors, Dongdaemun market merchants have been seeking to increase sales while widening the gap between the design value or quality of fashion products and the price level.

In the later stages of development, however, Dongdaemun market merchants are failing to achieve performance of their strategic tools because of high cost factors such as high wages, lack of human resources, or increased rents for shops, and so on.

One of the strategic alternatives is smart management, which is being proposed today. As widely agreed, what smart management means is a fast, intelligent, powerful strategic tool, and its management technique. 

First, smart management starts with ‘fast’ decision making and its execution. People often say “Now or never.” Likewise, any fashion product is meaningless unless it is new. With this ICT-based smart management, therefore, Dongdaemun merchants need to know information about consumer preferences and produce and supply better design products faster.

Second, smart management often gains great performance from its ‘intellectual business behavior.’ Above all else, Dongdaemun market merchants need to change their business behavior with ‘from experience to management’. They need the help of scientific management.

Third, smart management is one of the strategic tools to strengthen market competitiveness. We are proud that Dongdaemun Fashion Cluster has overcome the difficulties by having partnership with wholesalers, designers, sewing factory employees, and so on. Of course, that’s not enough.

To improve global market competitiveness, Dongdaemun market merchants should pursue smart management with ‘broader networking’ rather than simply managing together.

“In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.” +

Quoting this strategic discussion by Sun Tzu, a Chinese historical intellect, we discussed with SeoulClick CEO Lee Yong Woo and executives the solutions to the crisis in the Dongdaemun market.

+ Johnnie L. Roberts, The Big Book of Business Quotations, Skyhorse Publishing, 2016, p. 320.
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Bong Sul (Advisor, SeoulClick)
 Read more: Bong (Bong Sik) Sul, Dongdaemun Style, ebook.kstudy.com, Seoul, 2019.

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