Lotte Mart opened its 17th store in Vietnam in the emerging industrial city of Bac Giang in the north, moving to expand its store network.
Lotte Mart said on the 2nd that it opened the Bac Giang store in Bac Giang City in northern Vietnam on the 30th. It is the second new store launched this year, following the Tay Ninh store that opened last month.
Lotte Mart had operated stores mainly in large cities such as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, but with this opening it expanded its northern network to nearby industrial cities. The strategy is to capture retail demand in emerging cities where manufacturing investment and population inflows are active.
Bac Giang is a leading industrial city in Vietnam that has recorded high economic growth in recent years. Backed by industrial park development and the entry of global manufacturers, its industrial base is expanding, centered on information technology (IT) and electronics manufacturing.
With an influx of young workers and families, local income levels are rising and demand is growing for lifestyle amenities such as shopping and dining, Lotte Mart said.
Lotte Mart designed the Bac Giang store as a community-focused outlet tailored to everyday grocery needs. The first-floor shopping area has about 1,940 square meters (about 580 pyeong) of sales space, and it adopted a grocery-specialty format with about 89% of the assortment devoted to food.
The store layout was streamlined to meet after-work grocery runs and weekend family shopping. Along the main routes, it added themed specialty displays such as wellness and kids that reflect local demand.
At the entrance, Lotte Mart placed its private fresh food brand "FRESH 365" products front and center. Unlike local retail stores where bulk displays are common, it focused on standardized packaged products.
For meat and seafood, where hygiene management is key, all products are sold in pack form. It carries local seasonal fruits alongside imported fruits such as Korea-grown Shine Muscat and U.S. cherries, and also offers more than 30 types of organic and eco-certified produce, fruit cuts, and washed vegetables.
The meat display features items that are hard to find locally, such as Korean-style marinated meats, frozen thin-sliced pork belly, and Australia wagyu. Air-shipped salmon is sold by parts such as head and belly, divided by use.
The deli and bakery sections were also tailored to the local market. At the "Yorihada Kitchen," a store specialized in ready-to-eat items, it is strengthening bento offerings aimed at industrial park workers, and for family customers it sells popular street foods such as local-style chicken dishes.
The in-house bakery brand "Pungmiso" offers about 100 products across a display roughly 14 meters long. In the packaged foods section, instead of the conventional category-by-category layout, it created purpose-driven specialty corners such as a "Zero/Health Zone" and "Kids Street."
It carries about 1,300 K-food items. It set up dedicated shelves for Korean ramen and a specialized kimchi display, and created a "Lotte Zone" that brings together Lotte Mart private-brand (PB) items and affiliate products such as Lotte Wellfood snacks.
Cha Woo-cheol, CEO of Lotte Mart and Super, said, "The Bac Giang store is a strategic base that responds to the retail demand of Vietnam's emerging industrial cities, built on Lotte Mart's accumulated grocery capabilities," adding, "Through store operations that reflect local customers' lifestyles and consumption needs, we will establish it as Bac Giang City's representative shopping space."