A new location, new products, and a promising café space have been unveiled in the Manchester K-pop shop.

A wet Bank Holiday in May didn’t dampen the spirits of K-pop fans in the North-West of England when KStars announced its grand re-opening at a new location in Manchester’s city centre, still on Deansgate, but just across from St Mary’s Gate.

What’s new?

The new store is roughly three times bigger than the old location and boasts a brand new first floor which currently houses an ATEEZ pop-up with photo area and dedicated merchandise. This area will soon be used as a café, serving food and refreshments. Along with the café, there’s the ‘Life in Four Cuts Photo Booth’, as well as a couple of claw machines for customers to try their luck.

Images: Kathy Williams for Cherry Chu Magazine.

On the ground floor you’ll find albums, plushies, stationery, posters, and all the usual merchandise you would have found at the previous location, with lots of room to browse whilst you deliberate if you need yet another photocard holder (the answer is yes).

‘From Jisoo to KStars’

Despite the grand opening being an understandably busy day, Cherry Chu Magazine Contributor, Kathy, managed to grab KStars’ Founder Alex Wong for a quick chat about the shop’s history.

Being a K-pop fan (and self-confessed BLINK) himself, Alex previously struggled to buy albums which led him to question whether he could sell albums in the UK for other K-pop fans to access. He quickly set up a small stall in Afflecks in 2019, a national institution in Manchester for artisan sellers and for niche products. The success of the shop led to the expansion of the stall to a double unit after just one month.

Whilst COVID helped KStars with their online sales, it wasn’t until post-COVID that the shop could actually move to their larger dedicated location in 2021. Coupled with its online presence and the growth of their warehouse operations, the demands of K-pop in the UK continued to grow — Alex soon realised that the shop also needed to expand to meet those demands.

They managed to find the new location and move all within a month. Alex praises his entire team for getting the store complete in time and for all the late nights and amazing effort everyone has put in.

When asked why he thinks K-pop is so popular now, he compares the popularity and success timeline to anime: “10 years ago, if you said you were an anime fan, you would be the odd one out.” Alex feels that since more people now read and watch anime content it has become acceptable.

He feels this is the same for K-pop, as there are more mainstream outlets such as BTS member JUNGKOOK’s performance on BBC’s The One Show and K-pop albums being sold in HMV — these all help with the exposure of K-pop to the general public and therefore make it more acceptable to declare yourself a K-pop fan.

Images: @kstars722 Instagram.

With the conversation turning back to KStars re-opening, Alex explains how he wanted to keep the store experience pleasant for all customers, and therefore sold deposit tickets for the first day to ensure that they could serve and help customers and avoid overcrowding. The first time slot tickets sold out in ten minutes, followed by the second release selling out in 30.

“I was worried that no one would come,” Alex laughs as he shares the impressive numbers.

Now working directly with suppliers in Korea, KStars is able to offer the ATEEZ comeback album Golden Hour: Part 1 on the day of its release on 31st May

KStars’ customers have their say

Kathy also spoke to a couple of K-pop fans in attendance of the grand re-opening.

Friends Zaynah and Chloe from Bolton have been loyal KStars customers since their humble beginnings in Afflecks back in 2019 and attended the previous store opening at 1 Deansgate. They have been fans of K-pop for over four years and list SEVENTEEN and ATEEZ as their current favourite groups.

So why do they think K-pop has gained so much popularity over the last few years?

”The bands cater for the Western audience a lot more,” comments Zaynah. “When I started following bands, it was only really YouTube that provided any content.”

Another customer, Sarah (along with her daughter Tienna), made the trip all the way from Stafford and was happy to be supporting a local business and, again, used to frequent the previous store. Sarah was initiated into K-pop by Tienna and the two have frequently attended concerts, with superstar girl group TWICE being a particular stand out for them.

Whilst Sarah is new to K-pop, her daughter Tienna has been a fan of the genre for over four years. We asked what she thought has brought about the rise of K-pop to the mainstream: “I think that the music has matched with current trends so is getting a lot of people interested in K-pop because of the similarities to Western music, in terms of hyper-pop which has influenced the groups and artists”.

Building a K-pop community

The 15-strong team at KStars all helped to bring the new store opening to life. Becka was manning the front door as a greeter, lending a friendly face to security and crowd control.  She can usually be found working at the warehouse but was drafted into the store for this big day.

She gave us her own take on how K-pop has grown: “I think a large part of it was to do with COVID and people being at home with nothing to do.” Becka herself became interested in K-pop during lockdown, making her a clear example of this theory.

Jasmine Thomas, the KStars store manager, echoed the same sentiment: “COVID definitely was a large part of it, everyone had so much more free time, looking for entertainment. I don’t really think we in the UK have anything that is equivalent to K-pop.

“We have some really great music but with K-pop, combined with the outfits, the choreography, and all of the extra content, I feel like there is a really big community to be a part of.”

Community is also on the KStars’ agenda with the expansion. Alex and Jasmine are both passionate that the new café is going to be a place where people can open their items purchased downstairs and chat to other K-pop fans, or it can just be a place for the K-pop community to meet up, trade photo cards, and relax with like-minded people.

“Many of our repeat customers, we know their names and the idols that they like,” says Jasmine. “It is really nice that when they come in store, it isn’t a normal shop, we always stop and chat. All of us have this one thing in common that we enjoy.

“I have become really good friends with many of our customers. We like to organise events like this — it is a really good way to meet people.” Jasmine’s eyes truly light up as she tells me about the special community that the store has provided for her and others.

“We see customers that meet in store, trade photocards, and start chatting, and they come into the store next time as friends,” beams Alex as he recalls a similar story.

Images: @kstars722 Instagram.

And for a moody Bank Holiday in May, this store really was bustling with excitement and friendship. There were focused looks and smiles all around as people bustled around searching for their wish list items, taking pictures, playing on the claw machine, and — despite being a tad sodden on arrival — there wasn’t a complaint to be heard.

At the end of our trip, one customer could be overheard: “I hope there is a parent crèche next time, so we can grab a drink and just hand over the money”. With the KStars store looking to be shooting for the moon as they grow more and more each day, their wish just might come true next time they visit.

Edited by Gabii Rayner.

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