Editor’s Note
This article examines a significant shift in New York’s wholesale markets, where Chinese merchants are increasingly displacing Korean businesses. It highlights the rapid pace of this change and the complex economic forces at play in urban commercial landscapes.
Times Square, Manhattan, New York.
In the commercial competition between Korean and Chinese businesses unfolding in New York’s Manhattan wholesale markets, Korean business owners are being pushed out. Wholesale stores dealing in daily necessities such as clothing, shoes, and jewelry are successively falling into the hands of Chinese merchants.
These are the words of Jang Kyung-soo, Vice Chairman of the New York OKTA (Overseas Korean Traders Association). He operates a general merchandise wholesale business under the name Seven Trading in Manhattan’s wholesale market, supplying items like school bags and character hats.
However, the business environment worsens each year, and his concerns deepen. Recently, he feels he is nearing his breaking point.
The Manhattan wholesale market shares a history with the immigration story of Koreans to New York. In the 1970s and 80s, when Koreans flocked to New York, the area that is now the Manhattan wholesale market was reportedly a quiet district. Koreans gathered here, opened stores, and supplied general merchandise, cultivating the present-day wholesale market.
But the situation is changing rapidly. While the early pioneers who built the wholesale market still remain and operate stores, the presence and influence of Korean wholesalers are increasingly diminishing.
It is said that the strength behind the Chinese merchants encroaching on the Korean wholesale market lies in their connection to factories. Companies that own production factories in mainland China directly open stores in the New York wholesale market, giving them an inevitable price advantage.
The struggles of Korean companies that entered China is another reason. It’s somewhat similar to the butterfly effect. Most Korean jewelry factories that entered Qingdao, China, have closed in recent years. This is because Chinese companies became able to supply products of similar quality at lower prices.
Min Seung-ki, Chairman of New York OKTA, analyzes that this has been a direct hit to Korean jewelry stores in Manhattan. He operates an import wholesale business for women’s scarves under the brand ‘Brington Scarves’ in Manhattan and also runs an online wholesale business for women’s custom jewelry.
Custom jewelry refers to somewhat expensive decorative items, like imitation gems. He adds, “In the custom jewelry field, China still cannot catch up to Korean company products,” but notes that “cheaper jewelry products have already fallen into the hands of Chinese wholesalers.”
Because of this, Korean wholesalers in Manhattan have become like a sandwich, pressured from both sides. The reality for Koreans in the Manhattan wholesale market is that they are stuck helplessly between Jewish merchants who hold licenses and Chinese merchants who own factories.
