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Shinsegae, Lotte call for 'continuous innovation' in hard year for retail

Published: 02 Jan. 2025, 16:57 Updated: 02 Jan. 2025, 19:14

KIM JU-YEON
[email protected]

Shinsegae Group Chairman Chung Yong-jin delivers his New Year's address. [SHINSEGAE]

The heads of both Lotte and Shinsegae urged employees in their New Year’s addresses to continuously innovate in 2025, a year they predict will be hard times for retail due to weak domestic demand and low economic growth.

Shinsegae Group Chairman Chung Yong-jin asked employees to always focus on high-value customers’ needs, referring to them as Shinsegae’s “principal occupation” and “growth engine.” Major Korean retailers Shinsegae Department Store, Emart, Starfield and Traders Wholesale Club are under the group's umbrella.

“Top customers desire novelty and find satisfaction in experiences that are different from the past. We must rapidly react to and accommodate top customers’ needs in 2025, as is what makes up Shinsegae’s principal DNA,” Chung said.

The chairman added, however, that there was “no reason to shrink away” from initiating changes and new goals to secure business from top customers.

Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dong-bin [LOTTE CORPORATION]

Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dong-bin also emphasized an urgent need for innovation and warned that there could be a “bigger crisis” for Lotte without it. The group had a rocky 2024 due to its faltering chemical affiliate that raised liquidity concerns for the entire group.

“We must preemptively establish a financial strategy and improve our financial soundness based on it,” Shin said, adding that this would lay the foundation so that Lotte could once again spur growth and fulfill market expectations.

The group must improve on the competitiveness of its core businesses to maintain sustainable growth, he said. Lotte Corporation outlined how it would expand its portfolio to include four other businesses — Lotte Biologics’ contract development and manufacturing organization business, EV charging infrastructure, battery materials and metaverse — outside of its core retail, food, chemical and construction businesses in its value-up plan for the group published in November last year.

Shin said affiliates should focus on implementing AI to create new business models and save on costs when sharing Lotte’s New Year goals for the global market.

“We have overcome numerous obstacles and developed a DNA that turns crises into opportunities. Change and innovation involve fear and pain, but we will have to overcome them to grow and reach our goals,” the chairman said.

BY KIM JU-YEON [[email protected]]