Hanil Electronics, a small to medium-sized enterprise (SME) specializing in hair dryers, is CEO Junghyeon Oh’s pride and joy. Junghyeon founded the company in 1978 with the motto, “Quality is the best secret of a long-established company. The customer’s safety is not negotiable.” Junghyeon takes great pride in his products, including an infrared hair dryer that helps with hair loss and the company’s flagship Patech models. Despite the high-quality of the company’s dryers, Hanil’s annual sales stagnated between 5 to 7 billion won (around 4.1 to 5.8 million dollars) for decades.
“If we kept going like that, we would have shut down within 10 years,” Junghyeon said. “A change was necessary.” In 2017, 80% of Hanil’s products were distributed offline, with the company unable to keep up with the explosive online consumption trend. The real issue was that these offline sales had been continually declining since mid-2015. In order to save his company, Junghyeon decided to overhaul his company from top to bottom.
“First, we recruited young employees in their 20s who were talented in online marketing, and we joined Coupang,” said Junghyeon. “We also introduced products to suit the tastes of today’s youth.” These types of changes included “reducing the weight of the products and applying color designs suitable to young tastes, such as pink and silver.”
One year after pivoting to Coupang, Hanil Electronics posted 8 billion won in annual sales, and by 2020, it broke the 10 billion won mark for the first time in the company’s history. In just four years, the company’s distribution structure has dramatically shifted, with 70% of sales made online and Coupang being the company’s top distribution channel. Meanwhile, Hanil is ranked No. 1 on Coupang in the hair dryer category, and is now actively making advances overseas, in 15 different countries.
“We’re selling 1,000 to 2,000 units per day, delivering over 70,000 units on a good month,” said Junghyeon. And as someone who believes quality is paramount, Junghyeon loves the ability to check customer reviews on Coupang in real-time in order to further improve his products. “Rocket Delivery provides good product exposure and has a high flow of customers, so we can gather a lot of product reviews.” Hanil is committed to continued development—“We invest 10% of our annual sales in R&D and develop each product for over a year,” notes Junghyeon—so the increased customer exposure on Coupang has been a great boon.
publishThis exposure opened the door in turn to new international opportunities. “The exposure of our hair dryers on Coupang, one of the top online sales channels in Korea, increased our negotiating power with overseas buyers.” Junghyeon, despite turning 68 this year, has no plans of stopping any time soon. “I want us to grow beyond being a manufacturer that produces the best products into a global brand,” he said. “My dream is for the world to equate ‘Patech’ with Korean hair dryers.”
