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| The main screens of the Lotte.vn website and mobile application. / Courtesy of Lotte Group |
By Park Jae-hyuk
Lotte Group said Thursday it will launch its online shopping site in Vietnam today ― "Lotte.vn" ― seeking to expand in the country's e-commerce market.
Korea's major retailer established a limited company named Lotte E-commerce Vietnam in February and has recruited local sellers to prepare for the new website.
Lotte.vn will offer goods and services based on the retail networks of Lotte Department Store, Lotte Mart, Lotte Home Shopping and L.POINT, which opened earlier in Vietnam, the group said.
The online mall will feature an open market to meet the various demands of the Vietnamese ― especially young women ― and will involve 500 popular local sellers, along with Lotte affiliates, according to Lotte.
As well as foreign cosmetics brands, such as Shiseido, Lancome and Kiehls, the company plans to sell Korean cosmetics brands including The Face Shop and Laneige, which have been famous in Vietnam thanks to the Korean Wave.
Lotte will also introduce Korea's developed e-commerce systems, such as direct delivery and a membership service.
More than 90 percent of items purchased in Ho Chi Minh City will be delivered to customers in 24 hours through the group's L.express. The daily delivery service will also be available in five other major cities, including Hanoi, Danang, Can Tho and Hai Phong.
Lotte E-commerce Vietnam head Seo Tae-ho said, "Vietnam's e-commerce market has recently shown rapid growth, emerging as an attractive market with large potential."
Total sales in Vietnam's e-commerce market reached $4 billion in 2015, a 37 percent rise from a year earlier, and each Vietnamese customer spent $160 a year on average, according to a Korea International Trade Association report released in May.
Although e-commerce covers only 2.8 percent of Vietnam's retail market, more young people are buying items like clothes and cosmetics via online malls, the report said.
"Most Vietnamese people are yet to purchase products online, because most of the quality is still untrustworthy," a Vietnamese female office worker in her 20s told The Korea Times via Kakao Talk. "Many products are different from the images posted online, but I can perhaps trust the quality of products sold at the online malls of Korean firms."
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