Lotte.com opens Tmall storefront

Korean retailer Lotte Mart has opened a shop front on China’s Tmall.

The Lotte Mart store on Tmall Global, is the first Korean discount store to have an online presence on the popular Chinese online shopping mall.

Lotte Mart has launched with an offer of 16 selected Korean products popular with Chinese customers, including beauty products such as shampoo and bathing goods, ginseng and Tongkeun Oxford blocks.

The range will be expanded to between 100 and 120 products by the end of March.

Lotte.com will manage the Tmall site operations and marketing while Lotte Mart will manage product sourcing.

Lotte Mart will monitor sales to Chinese tourists in its offline department stores and duty free outlets to guide product selection for the new Tmall store.

Lotte.com opened a Global Lotte.com site in February 2014, serving overseas purchasers. Chinese shoppers account for 75 per cent of the Global Lotte.com sales, despite the site serving 19 international markets. Sales to Chinese shoppers are increasing by an average of 40 per cent each month this year.

Lotte.com says Chinese shoppers trust the quality of Korean products with the most popular categories Korean cosmetics and baby products such as diapers and wet tissues.

Tmall is a business to consumer online store managed by Alibaba, China’s largest eCommerce group. Tmall Global specialises in foreign brands and foreign companies targeting Chinese residents.