Lotte Mart Expands Warehouse Discount Store 'Big Market' to Over 20 Locations

Early Next Year: Mokpo Branch, Songcheon Branch, and Sangmu Branch Transition Opening

[Asia Economy Reporter Jo In-kyung] Lotte Mart has embarked on a new leap forward by expanding its warehouse discount store VIC Market business.

Lotte Mart announced on the 29th that it plans to increase the number of stores to more than 20 by 2023, starting with converting Mokpo Branch, Jeonju Songcheon Branch, and Gwangju Sangmu Branch into VIC Markets early next year.

Along with this, Lotte Mart has newly defined its business vision as "a warehouse store that always pursues customer value with new products."

The strategy is to start in the Honam region and Changwon area, where competitors do not have warehouse discount stores, and to actively expand warehouse discount stores by entering the metropolitan area by 2023.

The newly introduced VIC Market will further specialize in fresh food, a strength of the existing VIC Market, in addition to the basic values of warehouse discount stores such as reasonably priced bulk and carefully selected products. Also, to enhance shopping convenience as a regional hub store, category specialty stores such as living specialty stores and wine specialty stores will be linked together.

They will also attempt product differentiation by accelerating the development of private brands (PB) and expanding overseas procurement products. To this end, the proportion of PB overseas procurement products will be expanded to 30% of total products by 2023.

Lotte’s Shin Ju-baek, head of the VIC Market division, said, "We decided to expand the business because we still consider warehouse discount stores to be an attractive offline retail format," adding, "We will strive to become a warehouse store that always pursues customer value with new products."

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