[비즈한국] Lotte Shopping’s “Ocado Project,” an initiative with an investment of approximately 1 trillion won, has officially launched its first hub: the “Lotte Mart Zeta Smart Center Busan.” Lotte Shopping plans to expand its online grocery delivery network by building Customer Fulfillment Centers (CFCs) across six major hubs nationwide, starting with Busan. However, construction of the second planned hub, the Goyang CFC, has been stalled for several months, making it difficult to predict when follow-up projects will proceed. Industry observers believe the operational performance of the Busan CFC will be a key variable determining the resumption of construction in Goyang and the pace of future business expansion.
Adopting British Ocado’s Automated Logistics System to Strengthen Online Competitiveness
On the 10th, “Zeta Smart Center Busan,” which Lotte Mart spent about four years preparing, began operations. The Busan center is an online-only logistics facility with a total floor area of approximately 40,000 square meters (about 12,000 pyeong). It handles up to 35,000 stock-keeping units (SKUs) and serves as the core hub for the delivery network in the Yeongnam region, including Busan, Changwon, and Gimhae. Lotte Mart invested approximately 200 billion won to build the center.
Zeta Smart Center Busan is the first tangible result of the “Ocado Project” that Lotte Shopping has been pursuing. In 2022, Lotte Shopping signed a partnership with British retail-tech company Ocado to strengthen its online grocery logistics competitiveness based on Ocado’s automated logistics system, the Ocado Smart Platform (OSP). The core of the system is the automation of the entire order fulfillment process—from product storage and picking to packing and shipping—using AI and robots once a customer order is placed.
With the Busan center now operational, attention is turning to the future expansion pace of the Ocado Project. Lotte Shopping originally set a plan to build CFCs in six regions across the country. As the influence of e-commerce companies like Coupang continues to grow, Lotte has embarked on building large-scale automated logistics infrastructure to bolster its relatively weak online grocery competitiveness.
The second hub following Busan is the Goyang CFC in the Seoul metropolitan area. In 2025, Lotte Shopping signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Goyang City and decided to invest approximately 200 billion won to build the second Zeta Smart Center. The center, located in Sarihyeon-dong, Goyang, was planned to have a total floor area of about 50,000 square meters (about 15,200 pyeong), spanning two underground floors and four floors above ground.
Construction of the Goyang CFC began in May of last year, with an initial goal of completion by June 2027. However, the site is currently at a standstill. The iron gate at the entrance is tightly shut, with only security staff present. According to investigations by Biz Hankook, the construction progress is currently at about 17%, remaining at the initial civil engineering phase, such as foundation excavation.
The fact that the construction schedule for the Goyang CFC had hit a snag began to emerge early this year. At the time, Lotte explained that the suspension was temporary, citing ongoing consultations regarding design changes and the seasonal factor of winter. However, it has been confirmed that full-scale construction has not yet resumed even after several months.
A Goyang City official explained, “We are aware that construction has been suspended since the second quarter of this year. While we continue to check on the resumption schedule, we understand that the site has not received any specific updates either. As construction is halted, we expect the originally planned completion date to change as well.”
Lotte Shopping explained that the delay is due to design changes. A Lotte Shopping representative stated, “For the Goyang CFC, we are undergoing design changes to improve space utilization and operational efficiency ahead of the main construction phase, following the completion of foundation work. The final investment scale and completion schedule will be solidified after the optimized design plan is finalized.”
Busan Center as a ‘Test Bed’… Determining Future Investments in Goyang and Beyond
The Ocado Project is one of the key retail businesses within the group that Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dong-bin has been personally overseeing. It embodies Lotte’s mid-to-long-term strategy to not just expand logistics centers, but to strengthen its relatively weak online grocery business through automated logistics.
In December 2023, Chairman Shin personally attended the groundbreaking ceremony for the Busan CFC, where he presented a blueprint to build six CFCs nationwide starting with Busan and to leap into a competitive online grocery platform based on them. As the group’s top leader personally visited the site and announced the nationwide expansion plan, the Ocado Project has been viewed as a core investment that will determine the future competitiveness of Lotte’s retail business.
The industry views the performance of the Busan CFC as a crucial test bed that will determine whether the Ocado Project will expand further. The key is to go beyond simply improving logistics efficiency through automated equipment—the company must secure sufficient order volumes and translate them into growth in online revenue and profitability. The early results observed at the Busan CFC are expected to influence the timing and scale of investments for subsequent centers, including the one in Goyang.
Lotte Shopping also maintains that it will use the performance of the Busan CFC as a primary criterion for judging subsequent investments. A Lotte Shopping official stated, “The operational performance of the Busan center will be used as one of the key benchmarks for reviewing the investment timing and operational direction of subsequent centers.”
The Busan CFC is known to be capable of processing up to 33,000 orders per day. This is more than double the volume of online orders previously handled by Lotte Mart in the Busan and Gyeongnam regions. Lotte Mart did not disclose the actual order volume for the Busan CFC. However, it explained that as a result of a pre-operational phase where online orders from select stores in the Busan/Yeongnam region were transferred to the Zeta Smart Center, order counts increased by approximately 20–30% compared to when deliveries were handled by existing stores.
“The Zeta Smart Center Busan is currently in the early stages of operation, and we are focusing on stabilizing the system and expanding order processing capabilities,” said a Lotte Shopping official. “We plan to gradually increase the center’s utilization rate and processing capacity to accelerate growth in online orders and revenue.”