Lotte Mart and Supermarkets Hold Partner Invitation Conference... "Presenting a New Growth Vision"

Mutual Growth through Integrated Sourcing and Strong Partnerships

At the partner invitation conference held on the 8th at Lotte Hotel World in Seoul, Kang Sung-hyun, CEO of Lotte Mart (left), and Nam Chang-hee, CEO of Lotte Super, are greeting each other. (Photo by Lotte Mart)

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Chunhan] Lotte Mart and Super announced on the 9th that they jointly held a partner invitation conference at Lotte Hotel World.

This conference was organized to share Lotte Mart and Super's new growth vision and grocery operation direction with partners, and to seek mutual development plans based on a solid partnership. Kang Sung-hyun, CEO of Lotte Mart, and Nam Chang-hee, CEO of Lotte Super, introduced the new growth directions to be pursued this year to realize the vision of the Lotte distribution group as "the customer's first shopping destination." The Lotte distribution group plans to create synergy between business divisions and better customer experiences under the broad themes of grocery and lifestyle.

In particular, Lotte Mart and Super plan to proactively lead the strengthening of the grocery business competitiveness across the entire Lotte distribution group. To this end, they intend to integrate the product sourcing tasks that were previously operated and conducted individually to increase synergy. They will also proceed with the integration of product codes between Lotte Mart and Super. Previously, although handling the same products, separate product codes were used, making it difficult to generate mutual synergy. However, through product code integration, tasks such as unified ordering, product management, and data analysis will become possible, enabling the provision of better grocery products and related services to customers.

Lotte Mart and Super will transform from the existing standardized format into specialized grocery stores. Instead of being divided into large marts and supermarkets, they plan to introduce large grocery specialty stores composed of various product assortments and specialized stores, as well as small to medium-sized grocery specialty stores optimized for daily life-related products.

CEO Kang said, "The reason we were able to successfully overcome the difficult times caused by COVID-19 was not only our efforts but also the active cooperation of our partners," adding, "We hope that this conference will serve as an opportunity to leap forward as Korea's number one grocery together with our partners."