Lotte Super's Sales Soar as Prices Drop with 'Kkeutjang Products'

Sales Doubled Compared to Average per Store

Lotte Super announced on the 12th that stores introducing the ‘Kkeutjang Products’ saw a significant increase in sales growth rate.

‘Kkeutjang Products’ are exclusive Lotte Super planned items selected based on annual sales data, featuring fresh foods with high customer demand offered at the lowest prices in the industry throughout the year.

Customers purchasing clearance items at Lotte Super Jang-an Branch. [Photo by Lotte Super]

Starting with a pilot operation of four stores including Jang-an Branch in March last year, Lotte Super expanded ‘Kkeutjang Products’ to about 40 stores in the metropolitan area as of April this year, including Sangye 11 Branch and Mapo Branch, currently operating around 20 items in the vegetable and livestock product categories.

The price competitiveness strategy of Kkeutjang Products directly led to increased sales. Reviewing cumulative performance from March last year to April this year, the average sales growth rate of stores operating Kkeutjang Products was about twice as high as the average of all stores, and the growth rate for vegetables and livestock products also rose by 10% compared to the same period last year.

Lotte Super focused on price, the top priority value in product purchasing, to enhance customer shopping satisfaction. In fact, most customers visiting Lotte Super tend to make purposeful purchases in small quantities for immediate needs and are highly price-sensitive. Accordingly, Lotte Super priced these products about 30% cheaper than other vegetable and livestock products.

Lotte Super made various efforts to bring in affordable Kkeutjang Products. For vegetables, the Lotte Super vegetable team MD directly participated in auctions to enhance price competitiveness. They stayed at the auction site from 6 PM to midnight, purchasing various vegetables such as cucumbers, zucchini, peppers, and spinach at reasonable prices. To reduce packaging costs, vegetables were sometimes brought in directly in their original farm boxes.

For livestock products, instead of purchasing only popular cuts like front leg meat, they made bulk purchases by the whole animal, lowering the purchase cost by about 20%. In the case of pork, products focused on ogyeopsal (five-layer pork belly with skin) instead of samgyeopsal (three-layer pork belly), reducing costs related to raw material processing and thus lowering selling prices.

At the 40 or so Lotte Super stores operating Kkeutjang Products, ‘Practical Radish’ and ‘Practical Perilla Leaves’ are sold for 990 won each until the 15th, while ‘Practical Peeled Garlic (800g)’ and ‘Practical Potatoes (800g)’ are priced at 7,990 won and 3,590 won respectively.

Bong Won-gyu, MD of the Lotte Mart & Super Vegetable Team, said, "As the period of high inflation continues day by day, many customers want to purchase fresh foods at reasonable prices. We hope that Kkeutjang Products, which lower product prices to the lowest level through direct market purchases and minimal packaging work, will help ease the burden on customers’ shopping baskets even a little."

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