Payhere Enhances Tax Refunds, 10-Second VAT Refunds

Payhere, an integrated store management platform, is significantly enhancing its 'tax refund' service for foreign tourists, bringing a fresh wave to the retail and service industries. Moving away from the cumbersome manual passport information entry method, information is now automatically entered by simply scanning a passport barcode with the camera built into the card terminal, drastically streamlining the refund process. The biggest appeal of this innovative system is that foreign tourists can receive VAT refunds immediately at the store after shopping. Without the hassle of long queues at the airport or presenting receipts, they can immediately feel the benefit of a real discount, which naturally encourages additional purchases and creates a virtuous cycle leading to increased sales. In fact, 'Ofheart', a Payhere affiliated store in Itaewon, Seoul, experienced a significant increase in foreign customer conversion rates after implementing the service, and a clear trend of purchasing multiple items at once, leading to the remarkable achievement of foreign customer sales explosively increasing by nearly twofold. Not only retail and wholesale merchants such as clothing and cosmetics stores, but also accommodation and medical industries that do not use Payhere POS, such as hotels, dental clinics, dermatology clinics, and plastic surgery clinics, can sign up for and use the service for free through the customer center, making its accessibility very high. Payhere doesn't stop there; it also provides major international payment methods like WeChat Pay and Alipay, maximizing synergy for attracting foreign customers. Furthermore, it is offering comprehensive support to enhance the global competitiveness of self-employed businesses, including launching an exclusive waiting service—the first of its kind in Korea—that notifies foreigners without a Korean phone number of their turn via email. Park Jun-ki, CEO of Payhere, stated, "We have strengthened our tax refund service in line with the surging demand from foreign tourists since the COVID-19 endemic, and will continue to introduce a variety of features for the successful sales growth of our affiliated merchants going forward," raising expectations for the future.