Lotte Mart Opens Pilot Store No.1 of 'Korean-style Home Depot' at Nowon Junggye Branch

Junggye Branch, Interior Category Growth Rate Up 5%P
Self-Interior Trend Among Homebodies
Comprehensive Home Decoration Supplies... 5 Key Product Groups

[Asia Economy Reporter Minyoung Cha] Lotte Mart announced on the 23rd that it will open a pilot store of the ‘Korean-style Home Depot’ at the Junggye branch located in Nowon-gu.

This home center pilot store focuses on ‘home decoration’ within self-interior projects, operating five key Korean-style home center product categories: tools, repair supplies, lighting, curtains & blinds, and paint. A home center is a category killer store that sells materials and tools for decorating living spaces by oneself, with the UK’s ‘Home Depot’ and the US’s ‘B&Q’ as representative examples. It covers construction work, interior finishing, ceiling work, and decoration.

The Junggye branch in Nowon-gu recorded an 18.4% growth rate in the interior category from January to November this year, higher than the average of all branches (11.4%). Nowon-gu ranks third among Seoul’s 25 districts in school-age population, showing high interest in children’s education and strong demand for study room decoration. It also has many aging apartments, leading to high needs for renovation and repair. The school-age population refers to those aged 6 to 21, covering elementary to university enrollment ages.

Interior Lighting and Curtain Consultations Available

The five key Korean-style product categories were selected focusing on resolving customers’ inconveniences in the existing home interior market. Reflecting opinions such as ‘I can’t do simple repairs or maintenance because I don’t know how,’ self-tools and repair supplies were chosen that anyone can use to complete tasks within 30 minutes once they know the method. Curtains, blinds, and lighting were also adopted with a fixed-price installation system to ensure transparency in installation costs.

The home center store hosts various well-known brands and has experts on site for consultations and installation requests. Steady sellers include global power tool brands like ‘Bosch,’ ‘DeWalt,’ and ‘Milwaukee,’ hand tool brands such as ‘Stanley’ and ‘Irwin,’ and specialized screw and anchor brand ‘Myto.’ The paint section features the US premium brand ‘Behr’ and operates an electronic color matching machine.

Interior lighting installation services are provided through expert consultations for trending items such as coffered ceiling lights and downlight spotlights. For curtains and blinds, the store pre-checks nearby apartment blueprints, allowing customers to conveniently select the most suitable product simply by providing the apartment building and unit number.

Enhancing Competitiveness in Non-Food Sectors

This project began from considerations on how to improve efficiency in the non-food sector, which has shown poor growth within the mart. The domestic interior market size reached 41.5 trillion won this year, more than doubling compared to ten years ago. The increase in small households centered on millennials has spread trends of space customization by family members, and the rise of homebodies has also contributed to the expansion of the interior market by increasing the value of living spaces.

Lotte Mart plans to develop products and services into more specialized interior areas such as expanded woodworking and facility repairs, following the growth of the interior DIY market from European and American styles, starting with the home center pilot store focused on home decoration.

Song Jayong, team leader of Lotte Mart’s Home Center Promotion TFT, said, “We aim to apply the essence of discount stores?helping customers’ lives with affordable and reliable products?to the home interior market,” adding, “We will strive to eliminate customers’ inconveniences regarding DIY interior.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.