What: The Hyundai has launched The Hyundai Hi, an experimental e-commerce app designed to turn online department-store shopping into a curated, social, and personalized discovery experience.

Why it is important: The Hyundai Hi shows how department stores are rethinking e-commerce around discovery, content, gamification, and AI personalization rather than relying only on search, price, and product rankings.

South Korean department store chain The Hyundai has launched The Hyundai Hi, an experimental e-commerce app created with Base Design to rethink online retail around discovery, curation, and personal taste. The platform brings together more than 3,000 brands across fashion, beauty, home goods, fresh produce, and lifestyle categories, replacing the retailer’s former official online store and related platforms. Since its soft launch in April, The Hyundai Hi has generated more than 54 billion South Korean won, or around $35.3 million, in gross merchandise value, up 43.5 percent year-over-year. Registered users rose almost 560 percent, casual visitors increased more than 320 percent to 9.6 million, and total traffic climbed more than 300 percent to 18.5 million clicks. The app uses “gems,” saved-item mechanics, editorial content, user-generated content, tastemaker profiles, and original programming to encourage exploration. It also includes Heydi, a proprietary AI shopping assistant, as The Hyundai seeks to bring department-store inspiration, cultural connection, and guided discovery into a digital environment.

IADS Notes: The Hyundai Hi reflects a broader department-store shift from transactional e-commerce toward digital environments built around discovery, curation, influence, and personalization. As reported by RLI in April 2026 , leading department stores are seeking relevance through curated experiences, cultural programming, technology, and community engagement rather than scale alone. The app’s Pinterest-like interface and editorial discovery model also echoes Control Publicidad’s January 2026 coverage of El Corte Inglés, which used Pinterest to connect inspiration, curated product boards, and commerce in a more immersive shopping journey. Its semi-gamified mechanics align with Forbes’ February 2026 analysis of Sephora, where interactive shopping experiences strengthened engagement and loyalty among beauty customers. The Hyundai Hi’s network of “Icons” and original content strategy also parallels Fashion Network’s August 2025 report on Galeries Lafayette, which used influencer-led curation and social-style storytelling to animate product discovery. Finally, its AI assistant Heydi connects with Fortune’s March 2026 coverage of Macy’s “Ask Macy’s,” where conversational AI demonstrated the commercial value of guided, personalized shopping. 

Hyundai launches experimental e-commerce app platform