Lotte Mart launches dawn delivery in Busan, marking return after four-year hiatus

Lotte Mart launched dawn delivery service across Busan and parts of South Gyeongsang Province on Monday, marking the retailer's return to the early-morning delivery market after roughly four years. The company plans to expand its service area as it builds out operations around its Zeta Smart Center.

According to industry sources, Lotte Mart began offering dawn delivery through its online grocery platform Lotte Mart Zeta across the entire city of Busan on Monday. Customers who place orders by 11 p.m. can receive their deliveries before 7:30 a.m. the following morning. Lotte Mart first entered the dawn delivery market in 2020 under the name "Saebyek-e ON" through its Lotte On platform, but discontinued the service in April 2022.

The current rollout is a pilot operation. It initially covered select areas of Busan — including Haeundae, Gijang and Gangseo — as well as Gimhae, using the Zeta Smart Center, a dedicated logistics facility, as its hub. Starting Monday, the service also extends to parts of six cities and counties in South Gyeongsang Province: Yangsan, Tongyeong, Changwon, Haman, Geoje and Jinju.

"We are currently running a pilot for a limited number of areas ahead of the official opening of the Zeta Smart Center Busan," a Lotte Mart official said. "The dawn delivery test began last week, and we plan to expand the service area when the center officially opens."

Lotte Mart will bring the Zeta Smart Center Busan into full operation in August. The facility automates the entire logistics process — from storage and picking to packing — using technology from the Ocado Smart Platform. A second Zeta Smart Center broke ground last year in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province.

Through Lotte Mart Zeta, the company already offers a customized delivery service that lets customers choose their preferred delivery date and time slot. Same-day and scheduled delivery runs three to four times daily at 67 of its 112 stores nationwide. Once the Zeta Smart Center Busan is operational, daily delivery capacity is expected to more than double to over 30,000 orders per day.

Dawn delivery, however, is only possible through a dedicated logistics center such as the Zeta Smart Center. Under the current Distribution Industry Development Act, hypermarkets are prohibited from operating between midnight and 10 a.m., effectively barring them from offering dawn delivery directly from their stores. Deliveries dispatched from standalone logistics centers fall outside that restriction. E-mart already offers dawn delivery in select areas through its dedicated fulfillment center, NE.O.

Meanwhile, the Homeplus crisis has renewed momentum behind calls from the government and the ruling party to ease regulations on hypermarkets. If restrictions are lifted, large retailers could use their nationwide store networks — not just dedicated logistics centers — as dawn delivery hubs. Opposition from the Korea Federation of Micro Enterprise and the Korea Federation of Merchants is expected to complicate any deregulation push.