E-LAND built convenience stores to dodge SSM rules — the ministry closed the loophole

In June 2023 E-LAND Retail launched Kim's Convenience — hybrids of convenience store and supermarket, with no tobacco and fresh food expanded to about thirty percent of the range. The trick was the paperwork: registered as convenience stores, the outlets escaped the rules that bind 'super supermarts' — mandatory closures and operating-hour curbs — and E-LAND talked openly about franchise expansion. Five pilots opened in Seoul: Bongcheon, Dogok, Sinjeong, Yeomchang, Sinchon.

The incumbent industries noticed. Convenience-store chains and SSM operators pushed back against a format they said exploited a regulatory gap, and in March 2025 the trade ministry issued administrative guidance demanding adjustments to product lines and facilities — compliance would have erased the very differentiation the concept stood on.

E-LAND folded the experiment: franchise registration was cancelled on 13 October 2025, and the company called the whole venture a small-scale pilot test while it refocused on its mart business. Store no.1 at Bongcheon had already shut at the end of May 2025 on contract expiry and Dogok followed; the three remaining stores will close as their contracts run out.