Foreign K-beauty shoppers now make up over a quarter of South Korea’s Olive Young’s offline sales
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The largest Olive Young opened in Seoul in late 2025 and attracted more than one million visitors within four months.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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A wave of beauty-shopping tourists is turning CJ Olive Young’s stores into must-visit stops in South Korea, pushing overseas shoppers to account for more than a quarter of the retailer’s in-store sales.
Between January and May 2025 alone, 26.4 per cent of Olive Young’s in-store sales came from non-Korean customers, up from the single digits in 2023, the company said on Aug 14 in its second-quarter earnings report.
In the same five-month period, 5.96 million foreign visitors made purchases at Olive Young stores, equivalent to about 80 per cent of all inbound tourists to South Korea during that time, based on Korea Tourism Organisation data.
The health and beauty chain, a subsidiary of CJ Corporation, posted 1.46 trillion won (S$1.35 billion) in standalone revenue for the second quarter, a 21 per cent increase from 2024. Net profit rose 15.3 per cent to 144 billion won. Offline sales rose 21 per cent from the previous quarter, while online sales grew 13 per cent, indicating broad-based strength across both platforms.
First-half revenue reached 2.7 trillion won, up 17.9 per cent year on year. Net profit increased 17.1 per cent to 270.3 billion won.
Olive Young is now on track to surpass 5 trillion won in annual revenue for the first time in its history, continuing a steady upward trajectory: The company first broke the one trillion won mark in 2016, reached two trillion won in 2021 and reported 4.79 trillion won in 2024.
Olive Young has been deliberately building large, highly visible flagship stores in key tourist districts such as Myeong-dong, Hongdae and Seongsu in Seoul. These outlets combine extensive product offerings with multilingual services, interactive beauty zones and cultural programming designed to appeal to global customers.
The largest, Olive Young N Seongsu, opened in late 2025 and attracted more than one million visitors within four months, ranking among the top three nationwide for foreign sales.
“Our strategy has been to invest in experiences that resonate with global customers and make K-beauty accessible the moment they arrive in South Korea,” a company spokesperson said. “We want to be the first stop for discovering Korean beauty.” THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
