Lotte Mart said on the 30th that it fully revamped its Kelapa Gading store in Jakarta, Indonesia, and reopened it on the 26th. It reconfigured the wholesale store as the "Wholesale Food Market" highlighting K-food made-to-order cooking, and the retail store as a "grocery specialty store" centered on food. This follows the retail Pramuka store on the 9th of last month and the wholesale Serang store on the 23rd of the same month, making three stores unveiled in two months.
The Kelapa Gading store is a complex location where wholesale and retail stores operate on the same floor of one building, and it underwent a full overhaul for the first time in 15 years since opening in 2011. Within a 5-kilometer radius, about 1 million upper-middle-class residents live in a residential and dining district known as "Jakarta's gourmet paradise."
Lotte Mart placed an 843-square-meter (255-pyeong) "K-Meal Solution" zone at the wholesale-retail junction within the 7,600-square-meter (2,300-pyeong) store. Centered on the made-to-order cooking area "Yorihada Kitchen," it brought together the cafe "Kopea Cafe & Bakery," the bakery "Pungmiso," and the pizza brand "Cheese & Dough," and it offers more than 100 Korean foods, including kimbap, tteokbokki, and fried chicken bites. There are 144 seats for dining.
The retail store raised the share of food area to 90%. It expanded the fresh food section by about 30% from before and placed it at the very front of the store entrance, and newly created the "Noodle Zone," which gathers more than 180 types including Korean ramen, and the alcohol specialty "Beer Bunker." The wholesale store operates a "HoReCa (hotel, restaurant, cafe) zone" targeting foodservice operators and a 50-meter "sachet zone" for nearby small retailers, offering products of everyday essentials in small packages.
The latest overhaul was driven by improved performance at previously renovated stores. After the Gandaria City store, the first grocery specialty store in January 2024, Lotte Mart renovated wholesale and retail locations over 2 years and 7 months, with sales up 18% and visitors up 64%. In the institutional sector, after converting to the Wholesale Food Market, sales rose 23% and customer visits tripled, and the Serang store, which opened last month, saw sales up 30% and customer visits up 3.1 times. One out of two visitors to the Serang store used the K-Meal Solution.
Lotte Mart said it had called its combined wholesale-retail stores "hybrid," but changed the name to "Wholesale Food Market," judging that the core identity and price competitiveness of wholesale were not apparent. Going forward, it plans tailored renovations: Wholesale Food Market for districts dense with self-employed businesses and broad trade areas, and grocery specialty stores for districts closely tied to residential areas.
Lotte Mart entered Indonesia in 2008 as the first Korean retailer and now operates 36 wholesale stores and 11 retail stores. Cha Woo-cheol, head of Lotte Mart and Super, said, "We will accelerate growth in Southeast Asia by highlighting differentiated K-food and a customer-tailored shopping environment."