E-Mart to enter online shopping market

E-Mart, the country's largest discount store chain, said Tuesday that it will enter the online shopping mall business next month.

The discount store unit of Shinsegae Co. expects to raise up to 1 trillion won in sales by 2012 to become the No. 1 online mall operator, E-Mart CEO Choi Byung-ryul said in a press conference.

It will officially open its online mall (www.emartmall.com) on July 5.

E-Mart CEO Choi Byungryul addresses a press conference in Seoul on Tuesday. Yonhap News

"The online E-Mart mall will offer the same items as the offline stores, except that it will also sell products which are exclusively available online," said Choi. "The company, as a whole, will work together to transform online malls into the company's future growth engine and chip in bold investments for product development, operational system establishment and promotions."

E-Mart will join with other companies to introduce differentiated products into the online open market place. It will also take full responsibility for the items sold online for increased customer satisfaction, according to Choi.

It plans to make major improvements to the product delivery system -- such as possibly having items delivered merely one to two hours after purchase -- and other systematic services.

Up to 10,000 different grocery items, including fish, fresh seaweed and ginseng, will be available in the online market, he said.

Taking a step further, it will provide the wireless Internet service in all of its offline stores and launch its smartphone application sometime in August or September.

By Cho Ji-hyun ( sharon@heraldm.com)