Dog & cat supplies online shopping mall

Seojin S&D's CEO Sungeong Woo

As the modern society has set in, large families rapidly became nuclear families and the trend now is that more and more people are starting to live alone. Naturally, the number of people who keep dogs or cats like family members have been significantly increased and more than 10 million people had a dog or cat in 2013. The pet market which sells food, beauty goods, clothes and accessaries for dogs and cats has been explosively increased and its sales were 1 trillion won ($900m) in 2010 and it is predicted to be 6 trillion won ($5.6 billion) in 2020. The competition among the enterprises, in an attempt to gain an early edge, in the market is heated up, but www.dogskingdom.co.kr and www.catskingdom.co.kr are standing out.

Building up trust is more important than a price war

Cat supplies are hard to obtain compared to dog supplies and for this reason, the existence of Cats Kingdom itself is a good news for many cat lovers. Woo has been running Cats Kingdom with trust since it opened 3 years ago and she opened Dogs Kingdom this year which is creating a considerable synergy effect. It is Seojin S&D's competitiveness that Woo is capable of doing it all alone from web design to overall programmes. "I started to have a special feeling when I raised abandoned dogs and cats by chance." said Woo. Cats Kingdom and Dogs Kingdom are run independently online without using open market, social and total shopping sites in a bid to avoid a price war but only to grow as a trustworthy brand together with customers. It was hard for Woo at first because she was a woman. Finding the names and contacts of enterprises was difficult task and even if she obtained the information it was still difficult to be supplied goods at a good price. Also, Woo's competitors, who held her in check, were increasing. However, and without distraction, Woo always has been starting her day by checking the main screen of her home pages with customer-centered mind. "I always ask my staff to be 120% responsible from taking orders to delivery by putting themselves into customer’s shoes. We check everything from stock, cargo check, packaging to delivery as well as taking care of customers' complaints and after service."

Woo leads various volunteer activities

When she was running Dogs Kingdom, Woo learned that the tendencies and age groups were different from those who raise dogs and those who raise cats. "It was most important to understand the target customers. So we use bulletin board for cat customers and use help-line for dog customers to recommend a variety of relevant products." Woo also holds 'The Big Warehouse Opening Event' once in a year so that customers should know more about cat supplies and has promoted 'Photo Calendar Event'. Woo has been leading the volunteer activity 'Gilyangi Food Support' and has participated in 'Sharing Hearts' and donated the whole profits to a charity. "If you don't want to take responsibility till the end, do not even attempt to raise it" said Woo. It is Woo's ambition to open an offline retail store to provide a variety of information to people. She promised to engage herself in more social activities to fulfil her social responsibility.