Lotte Shopping Co., a retail unit of South Korea’s Lotte Group, has unveiled a blueprint to rake in an operating profit of KRW1tn ($751.9mn) on sales of KRW17tn by 2026, as well as presenting key strategies to improve profitability through optimization of its e-commerce business and expanding presence in Southeast Asian markets, including Vietnam. In 2022, Lotte posted sales of KRW15.4tn and an operating profit of KRW386.2bn.

Lotte Shopping’s core strategy centres on regaining its reputation as the top shopping destination by creating synergies across business units. The company aims to go beyond quantitative growth based on sales expansion and aggressively enter new businesses by utilizing Lotte Group’s tangible and intangible assets, with key strategies including re-establishing market leadership in core shopping areas, becoming the nation’s top grocery store, optimizing e-commerce business, and promoting partnership with Ocado Group, turning around underperforming business units, expanding business in Southeast Asia, and transforming into a retail tech company. 

Lotte Shopping plans to renovate eight major stores located in core shopping districts. For its e-commerce business, Lotte Shopping will use its partnership with British retail tech company Ocado Solutions established in 2022 to build six smart logistics centres by 2030 as part of its efforts to boost profitability. It also plans to use its customer platform Lotte Members Co., which boasts 42 million members, and 12,000 offline stores to link artificial intelligence technology with its retail business.