SOUTH KOREA. Leading travel retailer Lotte Duty Free is planning a fresh wave of store investment in 2016, notably at its main Sogong downtown store in Korea. It has also flagged its intention to extend its footprint in Japan beyond the duty free store it will open in Tokyo’s Ginza district in March.
News of the expansion plans come as Lotte Duty Free revealed sales for 2015 of KRW4.75 trillion (US$3.9 billion), a rise of around +10% on 2014.
Within this, noted the company, sales from Lotte Duty Free World Tower (which is slated to close later this year after Lotte Duty Free lost its licence) hit KRW611.2 billion (US$500 million). This was a surge of +26.79% on the figures for the previous year from that location and its former Lotte World outlet. The company said the growth rate at the World Tower site was higher than at any other duty free shop in Korea with sales of over KRW500 billion.
Lotte Duty Free’s flagship store in Sogong will undergo major expansion with the addition of an extra floor |
In big news for its flagship downtown location, adjacent to Lotte Hotel Seoul, the retailer’s three-story Sogong store (floors 9 to 11) will expand to the 12th floor of the building, adding 2,760sq m of space. The store expansion, approved last year by Korea Customs Service, is under construction now and will be completed within six months, Managing Director Merchandising 1 Division SK Lee told The Moodie Report.
The additional space will cater for the surging demand for Korean cosmetics brands and will double the size of the category, which is hugely popular with Chinese visitors.
Korean cosmetics brands will be the focus of the Sogong store expansion; pictured are a number of the key brand counters this week as Chinese visitors place their orders |
In other news, Lotte Duty Free confirmed the opening of its 4,396sq m store in Tokyo Ginza in late March. It also said that it would open its much touted Bangkok downtown store in 7,000sq m of space in June this year.
As reported, the 4,396sq m Tokyo store will be located on the eighth and ninth levels of a building near the Ginza station. On the eighth floor Lotte will showcase brand boutiques and luxury watches; fragrances, jewellery and watches will be the focus on the ninth.
SK Lee said that Lotte Duty Free would emphasis cosmetics in a more high-profile way than other downtown players in the emerging Japanese downtown market. “We are newcomers and will learn about shopping patterns in Japan. We believe that Japanese cosmetics will be popular among Chinese visitors and that they will also buy Korean cosmetics, like they do when they visit here.”
Lotte Duty Free also confirmed that it plans to open further downtown duty free stores in Japan in the future, both in Tokyo and in Osaka.
*Watch out for much more soon on Lotte Duty Free and its plans, including interviews with SK Lee and Marketing Director Bo-joon Kim.
Artist impressions (above and below) of Tokyu Plaza Ginza, scheduled to open on 31 March 2016 with a two-storey Lotte Duty Free outlet; more Japanese stores will follow, says the retailer |
