Lotte Shopping to target Coupang, SSG.com, Market Kurly

Lotte Corporation’s retailing affiliate Lotte Shopping is battling to survive against competition from the likes of Coupang, SSG.com and Market Kurly.

It has recently decided to strengthen the competitiveness of its super market brand Lotte Mart by offering the freshest food and ingredients possible. Starting from July 1, Lotte Mart will sell 200 fresh eggs at each of 20 stores in the capital every day that have been laid that morning. If it proves to be popular, the supermarket will increase the amount in accordance with demand.

Those that have not been purchased within 24 hours will be discarded. Normally, other eggs are put on the shelves for sale five to 10 days after they have been laid.

The same system will apply for seafood to ensure the highest quality.

The supermarket brand said the premium fresh food service is only available at certain offline stores at the moment but they will be available for online order at Lotte ON starting Wednesday.

Earlier in May, Lotte Mart experienced success with similar marketing schemes by selling pork that had been butchered only three days prior. This was four days less than the week usually taken by directly trading with farms. This is seen as Lotte Mart’s effort to attract customers to offline stores for more food and vie flourishing Market Kurly, the country’s largest online fresh groceries service.

“I think it is very important to shorten the distribution time after production of fresh food in order to strengthen the competitiveness of large discount stores,” said Moon Young-pyo, CEO of Lotte Mart. “We have introduced fresh eggs after fresh pork and we will continue to offer super fresh products in the near future.”

Meanwhile, Lotte Department Store began the quickest delivery service in the country Monday that sends an online order within three hours. Any order placed before 4:30 p.m. through Lotte Department Store’s online shopping mall or Lotte

ON will make its way to the customer within no more than an hour and arrive within 180 minutes.

The service is available nationwide and it offers nearly 90,000 products of 400 brands. There is no delivery charge if the customer purchases over 100,000 won on Lotte Department Store’s official website.

Earlier in April, Lotte Mart’s branch in Junggye-dong, northeast Seoul, and Gwanggyo-dong, Gyeonggi Province, introduced two-hour-delivery-service and it received favorable reviews.

Such a strategy is seen as targeting Coupang and SSG.com’s overnight delivery service, which took away many Lotte Department Store customers.