Lotte Duty Free anticipates that sales at its spectacular new downtown duty free shop in Tokyo’s Ginza shopping district will reach KRW150bn/$129m in its first year. At the opening today, the retailer also announced plans to open four to five stores in other regions in Japan and expects total sales from its stores in the country to grow to one trillion won ($860m) within a decade.

As TRBusiness reported yesterday, the Korean-style duty free shop in Tokyo, Japan marks Lotte Duty Free’s entry to the country’s downtown market. A source at the company told us: “We will create a new paradigm for duty free in Japan as we have done in South Korea.”

‘STEPPING STONE’

Today, the South Korean duty free and travel retailer went further by outlining its goal to become the world’s number one duty free player. Sunwook Jang, President of Lotte Duty Free (pictured above in the centre), commented: “Japan is rising as the biggest rival country (to Korea) in inviting Chinese tourists. By using the Tokyo Ginza store as a stepping stone, we will strengthen the brand competitiveness and advance the date of becoming the global number one duty free shop.

“We will keep expanding (our) overseas stores, publicise the competitiveness of Korean products and grow together with the SMEs in the overseas market.”

In a statement, the company goes on to say: “Lotte Duty Free plans to continuously expand overseas stores in order to let the world know the superiority of the Korean-style duty free shop and strengthen the competitiveness of the duty free industry in Korea.”

Currently, Lotte Duty Free has overseas retail operations at Jakarta Airport and Jakarta downtown in Indonesia), Kansai Airport in Japan and Guam airport, and it is accelerating the expansion of new overseas stores in Bangkok, Thailand and Osaka, Japan. The company first entered the Indonesian market in 2012.

GINZA HIGHLIGHTS

The shopping district of Ginza attracts 20 million visitors per year and Lotte Duty Free’s store is claimed to be the biggest duty free shop in Tokyo at 4,396sq m in total area.

The shop offers shoppers 300 brands in categories such as watches, jewellery, cosmetics, perfumes, electronics and accessories. Popular Korean brands, Whoo, IOPE, Mediheal and competitive Korean SME brands are expected to spread the K-beauty and K-fashion message more widely across the Japanese market.