Every Little Helps

  There is a proverb in the widely accepted English version. 

  “Every little helps.”

  Synonymously, Koreans often say that when dust is collected, it can become a high mountain. In fact, there were several trash landfills in the suburbs of Seoul, which became quite high like a mountain in the past 20 to 30 years.

  Anyway, Dongdaemun market is a large shopping mall that is hard to find in the other countries of the world. The market is famous for merchandising of various fashion products and its assortment. Therefore, Dongdaemun market, which has more than 30,000 wholesale and retail stores in one area, is a marketplace where anyone can easily shop for a variety of fashion products.

  What is more unique than anything else is that many of the fashion products on such a large marketplace are manufactured and supplied by 15,000 small sewing factories in Gangbuk, Seoul. Each small sewing factory produces a few items and a small amount of fashion products, and it becomes a huge amount of merchandise for Dongdaemun market which is a big fashion production-sales complex. New President, the United States of America, Joe Biden said.

“There is nothing we can’t do, if we do it together.” +

  We were very impressed with the new President’ speech. In particular, the people of small sewing factories that have partnerships with Dongdaemun wholesalers will be more and more impressed.

  The history of Dongdaemun market, starting a business with a unique system of manufacturing and selling fashion products in one marketplace can be traced back to the early 1960s. At the time, many small merchants in the market (Initially started with Pyeonghwa Market) had a clothing store on the first floor of the market, and a sewing factory plant on the second and third floors, and produced and sold in one marketplace. 

  As the scale of Dongdaemun market expanded in the 1970s, quite a few small sewing factories was built in the surrounding area of the market, and now the factory area is spread over the Gangbuk area of Seoul.


 


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


  Although these sewing factories were self-employed business with a small scale of capital and plants, they achieved remarkable management performance by doing business with small wholesale and retail shops at Dongdaemun market. In praise of this phenomenon, Koreans often use the proverb “Little pepper is spicy.” ++

  We have always said that fashion products in the Dongdaemun market are strong in global market competition thanks to the triple management such as product, speed, and price. Perhaps no one will be able to object to this discussion. However, let’s consider Warren Buffett’s quote about how to invest.

  “Without passion, you don’t have energy, without energy, you have nothing.” +++

  That’s the right point. CEOs of small-scale sewing factories in Gangbuk, Seoul, have ‘passion’ that has been the driving force of economic growth and development that achieved the miracle of the Han river, under the banner of “Let’s overcome poverty and live well.”

  They have been working hard with this passion. The employees of the sewing factories also work diligently and earn money, so they have a desire to become the CEO of another sewing factory themselves. Sometimes they make life plans to become an owner of wholesale or retail stores in Dongdaemun market.

  Needless to say, this enthusiasm not only inspires the will of work and increases labor productivity, but also played an energy role in maintaining the competitiveness of supply prices by going to the market with rational management and cost-saving production.

  Quite hardly, despite the catastrophe of the COVID-19 Pandemic, their small-scale sewing factories are now trying to achieve great management performance as small but strong companies while continuing innovation toward smart management amid the new wave of the 4th industrial revolution.

  Similar to the eloquence of the new President of the United States, there is nothing they can’t do, if they work hard with passion.

+ nytimes.com

++ Why don’t you try to taste Shin Ramyun.

+++ www.google.com

<36>



Bong Sul (Advisor, SeoulClick)

www.seoulclick.com


 Read more: Bong (Bong Sik) Sul, Dongdaemun Style, ebook.kstudy.com, Seoul, 2019.


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