A Comparative Study of the Robustness and Resilience of Retail Areas in Seoul, Korea before and after the COVID-19 Outbreak, Using Big Data

This study aimed to assess the robustness and resilience of retail areas in Seoul, based on the changes in sales before and after the COVID-19 outbreak. The spatial range and temporal scope of the study were set as district- and community-level retail areas in Seoul, from January 2019 to August 2020, to consider the effect of the COVID-19 outbreak. The data used in this study comprised sales information from the retail sector, namely Shinhan Card sales data for domestic and foreigners by business type in Seoul, provided by Seoul Big Data Campus. We classified the retail areas based on the change in sales before and after the COVID-19 outbreak, using time series clustering. The results of this study showed that time series clustering based on the change in sales can be used to classify retail areas. The similarities and differences were confirmed by comparing the functional and structural characteristics of the district- and community-level retail areas by cluster and by retail area type. Furthermore, we derived knowledge on the decline and recovery of retail areas before and after a national crisis such as the emergence of a COVID-19 wave, which can provide significant information for sustainable retail area management and regional economic development.