SOUTH KOREA. Lotte Duty Free today launched Sogong 1St Avenue, which it described as the world’s first online duty free luxury store.
The online store, opened at 9am Seoul time, offers 30 luxury brands of fashion, jewellery and watches with some 5,000 individual items featured. These include a range of high-end bags, clothes, and accessories that were previously unavailable on duty free ecommerce sites.
Sogong 1St Avenue is named after the neighbourhood of Sogong-dong in Jung-gu, Seoul, where the history of Lotte Duty Free began in February 1980 and which houses its flagship store to this day. The new concept is a luxury brand exclusive hall housed within Lotte Internet Duty Free.
The travel retailer vowed to continuously increase the number of online stores for luxury brands. Lotte Duty Free also plans to create a high-end wines & spirits hall in Sogong 1St Avenue to allow online reservation sales from 23 November.
The company said that it plans to differentiate its shopping proposition through more accessible pricing, guaranteed 100% after-sales service. and product authenticity through sourcing all products sold at Sogong 1St Avenue directly.
Lotte Duty Free pointed out its pioneering role in bringing luxury brands to the Republic of Korea. From its earliest days, the company attracted luxury brands drawn by the opportunity to enter an emerging market where the local retail scene was heavily protected.
From 1984 to 1986, Louis Vuitton, Hermès and Chanel were introduced in quick succession and for the first time in the world’s duty free industry, all the ‘big three’ of luxury were on offer.
Lotte Duty Free said that the opening of Sogong 1St Avenue inherits the spirit of a luxury duty free shop that has been passed down the line since business commenced in 1980. “It is a stepping stone to further solidify our position in the online luxury market as well as offline,” the company noted.
Additionally, the luxury purchasing trends of the MZ Generation (a distinctively Korean combined categorisation of Millennials and Gen Z) are increasingly shifting to online luxury stores, Lotte Duty Free said.
This was a key factor that pushed it to open an online luxury store, the company commented. Lotte Duty Free noted that its online sales ratio increased from 25% of total business in 2016 to 45% in 2020, and that ecommerce purchases continue to increase.
Lotte Duty Free CEO Lee Kap said, “As the domestic online luxury purchase market is expanding, we have opened Sogong 1St Avenue by utilising Lotte Duty Free’s ability to attract luxury brands. We aim to make it possible to conveniently shop for luxury goods online.”
In order to pre-emptively prepare for the upcoming ‘Live with Corona’ philosophy being adopted by the Korean government, Lotte Duty Free conducted an extensive reimagination of its online duty free shop in May and July.
A live commerce page was established on the online platform to livestream duty free sales once a month. Lotte Duty Free also opened a virtual experience space for Korean skincare brand Sulwhasoo’s flagship store using VR (virtual reality) and a virtual sunglasses fitting service deploying AR (augmented reality).
