Lotte Hi-Mart Launches Korea's First 'Home Appliance Replacement Service'

Digital Appliances as New Products at Half Price

Lotte Hi-Mart announced on the 31st that it will launch the country's first 'Home Appliance Replacement Service' on the 2nd of next month.

Lotte Hi-Mart will launch the country's first "Home Appliance Replacement Service" on the 2nd of next month. This appliance replacement service allows customers to pay a small annual fee when purchasing home appliances, enabling them to replace the purchased product with a new one of a similar price range at about half the cost.
[Photo by Lotte Hi-Mart]

The Home Appliance Replacement Service is introduced in partnership with the global insurance company 'Bolttech.' When purchasing home appliances, customers pay an annual fee and can replace the purchased product with a new one of a similar price range at half the cost. The service covers four categories of digital appliances: mobile phones, tablets, laptops, and desktops.

The annual fee ranges from a minimum of 40,000 KRW to a maximum of 180,000 KRW, and once paid, it remains effective for one year. If customers wish to renew the service after one year, they can pay the same annual fee, with the renewal period extending up to a maximum of three years.

Replacement can be done once a year. If the service period is extended up to three years, customers can replace their appliances once per year, up to three times in total. When replacing with a new product, customers only need to pay 50% of the product price in the first year, 40% in the second year, and 30% in the third year, resulting in a 50-70% discount effect.

Applications for new product replacement will be processed online (a dedicated website will be announced separately), and once the replacement product is prepared at the Lotte Hi-Mart store selected during the application process, it will be delivered to the desired location.

Lotte Hi-Mart explained that the service was introduced considering that digital appliances have relatively short replacement cycles, and the speed of specification improvements and trend changes in new products released annually is significant. They also added that frequent damage and malfunctions due to heavy use while on the move were reasons for introducing the service.

Lee Seung-yeol, head of the Insurance Interior Team at Lotte Hi-Mart, said, "Starting with digital appliances, we plan to continuously expand the range of replacement service items to include home appliances, kitchen appliances, and large appliances in the future."