E-Land is now considered one of the best success cases among Korea’s fashion companies in terms of internationalizing business.
E-Land made foray into the Chinese market in 1994 by establishing a Shanghai branch. Since that time on, it has earned about 60 percent of its fashion sales from foreign markets.
Its Chinese sales have expanded to more than 2 trillion won in 2013 from 1 trillion won in 2010 and 9 billion won in 2000. It chalked up annual sales of 2.65 trillion won in China by running 7,700 stores in 249 cities in China.
Choi Jong-yang, CEO of E-Land, said, “Our success in China is the results of the following three factors including CEO’s strong will, the selection of talents who are very familiar with the Chinese market, and a thorough implementation of localization strategy.” When dispatching its employees to China, E-Land made it a rule for them to read more than 100 books about China.
Fila is another example of success in the Korean fashion industry. It explored overseas markets through mergers and acquisitions. Fila Korea surprised the fashion industry in 2007 when it acquired its parent company Fila. Thereafter, it has expanded its annual sales up to 1.8 trillion won.
