This new store will have a sales turnover target of W130bn ($109m) in the first year and will also complement Lotte’s existing small joint-venture retail presences at Kansai Airport and also at the Tokyo Ginza Mitsukoshi downtown store – as reported back in September 2014.
Lotte Duty Free said it will now open its Osaka downtown duty free shop next year, as it also unveiled the basic details yesterday at a press conference alongside its partner, New Kansai International Airport Company and KAA, its Kansai Airport Agency retail subsidiary company.
The new 4,400sq m store will be located on the sixth and seventh floors of the Big Camera Namba, in Namba, Osaka and will feature ‘global luxury brands, cosmetics, perfumes, fashion accessories’.
Lotte said that the attraction of Osaka’s Namba district is its large transient population where shopping malls and restaurants that tourists prefer are ‘concentrated’.
For its part, the NKIAC Company said it is working with Lotte because it is a major player. The company said: “Lotte Duty Free is the leading duty free company in Korea; [it] is equipped with the successful know-how and experience in operating downtown duty free shops as a global top three duty free shop [player]; and is the duty free shop brand which Asian customers like the most.”
Sunwook Jang, President of Lotte Duty Free added: “Based on the successful experience to operate the duty free shops in Korea, we are expanding our shops in Asian countries like Japan, Thailand and Indonesia.
“We will do our best to globalize the Korean duty free shop by global expansion, to help the Korean brands to expand overseas and to induce foreign tourists to Korea by making connection with the stores in Korea.