Note №27RETAIL DATA
If you have stood in an Olive Young in Myeong-dong recently and wondered why half the store seems to be visitors with suitcases, the company’s own numbers say you were not imagining it. In 2022, foreign customers were 2% of Olive Young’s offline sales. In 2025, they were 25% — and spent over ₩1 trillion in eleven months.
The figures come from CJ Olive Young’s December 2025 announcement, and they describe something bigger than one retailer’s good year: Korea’s beauty chain has effectively become tourism infrastructure.
The numbers, in one table
| Foreign customers at Olive Young | Figure |
|---|---|
| Share of offline sales, 2022 | 2% |
| Share of offline sales, 2023 | 10% |
| Share of offline sales, 2025 | 25% |
| Foreign sales, Jan–Nov 2025 | over ₩1 trillion |
| Share of Korea’s domestic cosmetics tax-free transactions | 88% |
| Countries whose visitors processed tax refunds | 190 |
| “Global tourist zone” stores, Nov 2025 | 135 |
It is not just Seoul anymore
Comparing January–October 2025 with 2022, Olive Young’s foreign sales outside the capital region grew 87-fold — Jeju nearly 200-fold, Gwangju 72-fold, Busan 59-fold. About 40% of foreign customers visited two or more stores on a trip. The K-beauty shopping run has become a repeatable itinerary item, not a Myeong-dong one-off.
Three practical notes before you shop
- The tax refund happens at the till. Immediate refund on qualifying purchases is why 88% of the country’s domestic cosmetics tax-free transactions run through this one chain — bring your passport, and note the on-the-spot caps differ from the medical VAT story we’ve covered.
- Functional claims on the shelf are regulated claims. The 기능성화장품 label system we describe in a companion article applies to exactly the products filling these stores.
- Retail is the safe end of K-beauty. Nothing sold on an Olive Young shelf involves the clinic-side questions — licensing, procedures, disputes — that the rest of this site exists to untangle.
Sources and last verification
- CJ Olive Young announcement of foreign-customer figures (3 December 2025), as reported with full numbers by Cheonji Ilbo — newscj.com — accessed 18 August 2026
- Corroborating retail-press coverage of the ₩1 trillion foreign-sales milestone — mstoday.co.kr — accessed 18 August 2026
Verified 18 August 2026. Company-reported figures; the underlying press statement is the primary source.
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