Base Design has unveiled The Hyundai Hi, a new digital platform for The Hyundai, South Korea’s luxury department store.
In an era of hyper-competitive e-commerce, The Hyundai aims to redefine what a department store can be – translating its 50-year retail legacy into a digital experience including content, culture, and commerce online. Base Design set out to build an immersive world, creating the platform’s name, brand strategy, visual identity, art direction, and UI/UX. Rather than replicating transactional e-commerce, the platform that “is built around discovery and engagement.” With access to 3,000+ brands and a “gems” feature that allows users to collect and curate products, the experience is designed to mirror the exploratory nature of physical retail – reframing shopping as entertainment and leisure.
Conceived as “The Hyundai in your pocket,” The Hyundai Hi positions shopping as entertainment and leisure rather than pure transaction through an engaging, immersive, discovery-driven experience. “Department stores everywhere are asking the same question: What is our role in a world where e‑commerce and AI are rewriting the rules?” said Base Partner, Min Lew, who in 2021 led the naming and creation of The Hyundai’s brand. “With The Hyundai Hi, we helped The Hyundai translate its signature experience – premium hospitality and discovery – into an engagement-led digital platform built for how people consume time, content, and products now.”
YoungShin Jang, Platform Strategy Leader at The Hyundai, added: “The ambition for The Hyundai Hi was to create a new way of experiencing The Hyundai, bringing the sense of discovery, inspiration, and cultural connection that customers associate with our stores into a digital environment. “By combining curated brands with influential voices and original content, we’re creating a platform where people can explore their tastes, be inspired by new ideas, and engage with The Hyundai wherever they are. This is an important milestone in our digital transformation and the foundation for how we envision the future of retail.”
The platform introduces a curated network of “Icons” – tastemakers selected for their distinctive perspectives and cultural influence. Through recommendations, edits and storytelling, these Icons shape The Hyundai Hi experience and foster ongoing cultural conversation. Fueling connections further, ‘Me Space’, the community hub within The Hyundai Hi, allows customers to handpick content from the app, follow their favorite Icons, and share their lifestyle inspirations with like-minded connoisseurs. Here, shopping becomes a form of communication – a place where high fashion, premium living and community spirit collide.
Further blurring the boundaries between commerce, entertainment and culture, The Hyundai Hi is investing in original content initiatives, including stylists’ survival competition show Kill It, airing now on TvN, and editorial collaborations exploring lifestyle, food and travel – focused at launch on Copenhagen and Scandinavian design.
