The Tradition of Moral Commerce and Sustainable Management

  Jeju, the largest island in Korea is known as a place where many foreigners want to go sightseeing. It is also a place that is widely praised for its fantastic scenery as if the gods stayed there.

  Anyone who goes there will be able to see traces of a female merchant doing moral commerce in the late 1700s. Now, there is a tourist attraction where wealthy residents live, but the place where the poor farmers and fishermen lived 200 years ago was rough land.

  According to records, in 1795, after a long drought, many residents of Jeju island starved and the number of deaths increased day by day. The old people said,

  “Poverty cannot be saved by even a king.”

  Especially in Jeju, an island far from Seoul, it would have been more difficult to rescue all of them even if many residents were dying due to drought.

  At that time, the merchant princess Kim Man-deok disposed of all the money and property she had earned throughout her life, purchased large quantities of grain from the land, and donated it to the people of Jeju island.

  In the following year, King Jeongjo of the Joseon Dynasty, who pursued modernization at the time, not only praised the moral commerce & its virtue of her and invited her to his palace in Seoul, but also gave her the benefit of seeing the world-class Geumgang mountain.

  The commercial behavior of merchants in Dongdaemun market has in inherited the tradition of the moral commerce of Mrs. Kim, who made a lot of money based on the credit with the trading partners and gave back to society the fortunes earned in her lifetime.

  This discussion is likely to have its basis. The people of Dongdaemun market have partnerships with designers, wholesalers, retailers, textile & its parts suppliers, and employees of sewing factories, and they help each other and manage them together.

  On the other hand, the merchants there are continuing customer satisfaction management while they do business without sleeping at night to provide convenience for domestic and foreign retailers and buyers to work during the daytime.


-Some of the popular Dongdaemun fashion items we exported last week, seoulclick.com-


  Although there are some merchants who do immoral commerce, such as trading fake commodities, Dongdaemun market merchants generally continue the tradition of CSR. Needless to say, it is true that some merchants who doing such an immoral commerce were not consistently able to conduct sustainable management in the marketplace.

  Founded in 1938 and Korea’s No. 1 scale and excellence, Samsung, its founder, Chairman Lee Byung-cheol, had a unique entrepreneurial spirit. He said that a corporate deficit is a social sin, and it is the mission of entrepreneurs to create business surplus through rationalization of management and contribute to the country and society. +

  Like Samsung’s management philosophy, all of sustainable companies must make a lot of money through management rationalization and strong market competitiveness. It is a businessman's dream and the true value of life. Koreans said,

  “A heart of love for neighbors arises in the warehouse of the rich.”

  This proverb is also not wrong. We want the merchants in Dongdaemun market to make a lot of money amid stable sales growth. Also, we hope that they will always be happy with a warm heart to love their neighbors like our merchant princess.

  We know well that Kim Man-deok was a lifesaver to all Jeju people today. She gave back the money she earned during her life to society and inherited the virtue of such moral commerce to us. As if she is still living with us now, she will always be hoping that the people in Dongdaemun market will continue their stable business and live better with neighbors.

  Of course, ideal and reality are different. In fact, the people of Dongdaemun market are facing a crisis of survival because of the long-term recession and the pandemic of COVID-19.

  Be the matter what it may, however, they seem to be supported by hope for the future. In a new horizon targeting the global market, they will be able to overcome these big crises with innovative marketing strategies such as online and un-tact commerce.

+ www.naver.com

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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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