Suwon City Develops 'Digital New Deal' Smart Marketplace Service...Gumaetan Market to Pilot Next Year

[Suwon Ilbo=Reporter Seo Dong-young] Suwon City announced on the 21st that Gumaetan Market, a traditional market, will be transformed into a smart marketplace utilizing online platforms.

Starting next year, Gumaetan Market will enable small business owners in traditional markets to more easily enter the online market and residents to more conveniently use traditional markets through a neighborhood-based smart marketplace service.

Suwon City plans to develop and establish an 'untact smart marketplace platform' by the end of this year, apply it as a pilot to Gumaetan Market, and launch shopping services utilizing apps and kiosks starting next year.

The core of the service is a cloud-based non-face-to-face O4O (Online For Offline) smart marketplace to revitalize small business owners.

Consumers will order products sold by small business owners in traditional markets through mobile apps or kiosks, then either pick up the products or have them delivered.

Additionally, through writing sales reviews and providing ratings, other consumers can easily view marketing information, and direct communication will be enabled through real-time chat functions.

In other words, on a neighborhood basis, traditional market small business owners and consumers will directly communicate and trade products, providing an untact-based avenue for small business owners facing difficulties due to decreased sales following COVID-19.

By leveraging the advantages of delivery apps and direct transaction apps, traditional market products will be easily accessible.

This project was selected for implementation in the Ministry of Science and ICT's 'Digital New Deal' public sector competition project titled '2020 Public Sector Cloud Flagship Project.'

Under the direction of Eltob Co., Ltd., an untact smart marketplace platform for small business owners will be developed, and Suwon City plans to support this through collaboration with Gumaetan Market merchants.

For this, the city held a kick-off meeting with Suwon City officials and executives of the Gumaetan Market Merchants Association on the 16th.

An Sang-geun, chairman of the Gumaetan Market Merchants Association who attended the meeting, expressed expectations, saying, "Small business owners in traditional markets are relatively vulnerable to digital technology, and I hope this smart marketplace platform service leads to practical benefits."

The city plans to initially pilot the smart marketplace service at Gumaetan Market, then expand the service so more traditional markets can use it, and later prepare to link it with public delivery services.

A city official stated, "This service provided based on cloud technology, which is a fourth industrial revolution technology, is easy to spread and effective as a non-face-to-face business model for traditional markets," and added, "Online services for offline purposes will become a new opportunity for small business owners in traditional markets facing difficulties."