COVID-19, seafood, home meal: popular keywords for online shopping in H1

“COVID-19,” “seafood” and “home meals” have risen as popular keywords for online shoppers in the first half of this year, online grocery platform Market Kurly said Wednesday.

Market Kurly said it analyzed sales data it collected from January to June and found that products related to the three keywords saw jumps in sales.

Sales of items in the living and health category on the platform, such as face masks, grew by 170 percent compared to the year before. The e-commerce company said it sold some 730,000 facial masks in the first half of this year, and the item ranked first with the highest sales in the category.

On Market Kurly, seafood products showed the second highest sales growth rate, at 128 percent on-year. The rise in online seafood purchases showed a change in pattern, as people would typically buy in person to verify freshness.

The most popular item in the category was trimmed shrimp, which sold 1.5 times more than last year’s mackerel.

More people searched for home meal ingredients on the platform as well. According to Market Kurly, bean sprouts saw a 212 percent increase in sales with 129 percent for white radish -- both ingredients that needs to be cooked at home.

Home meal replacement product also saw a jump in sales, up 126 percent on-year, the e-commerce platform added.

By Jo He-rim (herim@heraldcorp.com)