Olive Young packs everything K-beauty into largest Myeong-dong store

New mega store, built to serve on high numbers of foreign shoppers in Myeong-dong, poised to export lessons abroad

Olive Young Central Myeongdong Town in central Seoul (CJ Olive Young)

CJ Olive Young's grand vision for foreign consumers took a new form on one of Seoul's most well-trodden tourist streets on Thursday.

Olive Young Central Myeongdong Town, the largest of nine Olive Young stores in Myeong-dong, was teeming with foreign shopppers on opening day, baskets heavy with beauty products, as staff wearing national flag badges wove through the crowd.

"Welcome to Olive Young," they called out in English in unison as customers entered.

Spanning three floors, Central Myeongdong Town trails the brand's other marquee location, Olive Young N Seongsu, in sheer size, but takes a markedly different approach. Whereas Seongsu is about the experience, Central Myeongdong Town is about the purchases.

"Last year, our Myeongdong Town store — a separate location within the same district — recorded the highest sales of any branch in our entire network, with roughly 95 percent of that revenue coming from foreign customers," an Olive Young official said. "It made the case for the new store.”

The numbers spoke for themselves. According to the Korea Tourism Organization, around 4.5 million foreign tourists visited Myeong-dong in the first half of 2025 alone, the highest footfall of any major commercial district in Seoul.

"The store is designed so that global customers can understand and enjoy K-beauty shopping more intuitively," the official said. To that end, Central Myeongdong Town stocks over 1,000 brands and 15,000 individual products — the largest selection of any Olive Young store — intended to let shoppers experience the breadth and depth of K-beauty in one place.

The store's layout reflects a close reading of what international shoppers actually buy, with the second floor running the gamut of makeup products and the third dedicated to skin care and wellness.

Customers browse sheet masks at Olive Young Central Myeongdong Town in central Seoul. (No Kyung-min/The Korea Herald)

A 37-year-old visitor from Sweden said she was on the hunt for hydrating skin care.

"Back home the weather is so dry, so I always need something that really locks in moisture," she said. "I heard Korean sheet masks are amazing, so that's definitely on my list.”

She was referring to the Mask Library, which houses over 800 different mask products arranged by skin type and function to help customers find what suits them. Elsewhere, dedicated zones bring together beauty devices and dermocosmetics, a response, the company says, to rising demand driven by medical tourism.

Some showed keen interest in health supplements. Among them was Johan Borodyn, 35, from France, visiting Olive Young for the first time. "I'm just browsing for some wellness products," he said, holding a pack of vitamin C gummies. "I've never been to a store this large dedicated entirely to beauty brands and products.”

For Olive Young, Central Myeongdong Town is a proving ground where the company's operational knowledge has been distilled, and whose lessons are ready for export.

The company plans to open its first overseas location in California in May, with additional stores across the Los Angeles area before year-end. A local logistics hub was completed earlier this month to support the rollout

"We expect the K-beauty experience here to follow customers home and drive consumption in their own countries," a company official said. "That, in turn, will feed back into the growth of the K-beauty industry as a whole."

Customers check out at Olive Young's newest Myeongdong branch on Thursday. (No Kyung-min/The Korea Herald)