Seoul's Hongdae district is set to overtake Myeongdong as the area with the largest concentration of Olive Young stores, once the outlets slated to open by the end of this year are counted. CJ Olive Young is building the neighborhood into a shopping hub for K-beauty and K-food, led by globally focused outlets, after sales surged with an influx of foreign tourists.
Olive Young opened the Hongdae L7 store on Yanghwa-ro in Seoul's Mapo District on the 16th, spanning two floors and about 170 pyeong (roughly 560 square meters), according to industry sources on the 19th. It is the chain's first new store in the Hongdae area in a year and five months, following the opening of the Hongdae Playground store in June last year. Including outlets scheduled to open by year-end, Olive Young will have 10 stores in the Hongdae area, including permanent pop-ups. That is more than the eight in Myeongdong, previously the chain's densest cluster.
Olive Young entered the Hongdae market in 2012 with its Hongdae Main Gate store and has steadily added locations since, with sales to foreign customers at its Hongdae-area stores rising rapidly. Foreign customer sales in the district grew at an average annual rate of 102% from 2023 to 2025, the company said. Foreign shoppers' share of total sales climbed to 79% in 2024 and 83% in 2025, from 63% in 2023.
The new Hongdae L7 store was designed as the district's first global-focused outlet to meet rising demand from foreign shoppers. The first floor houses a section selling Olive Young's own-brand goods and tarpaulin bags. The second floor features an EAT'S K-FOOD section gathering Korean food products such as Binggrae banana-flavored milk and HBAF honey butter almonds, the largest such space among the chain's Hongdae stores.
Olive Young's own-brand goods, first introduced at its Central Myeongdong Town store in March, saw foreign sales jump about 600% in September from March, when they were launched. Tarpaulin bags have also proved popular, with cumulative sales reaching 2.27 million units as of the end of September.
With skin care products clearly popular among foreign customers, the company also focused on that product lineup. About 40% of the store's floor space is devoted to skin care, with an emphasis on sheet masks, the Advanced Derma line and beauty devices. Olive Young's sheet mask sales to foreign visitors to Korea rose more than 40% in January through September from a year earlier, while beauty device sales grew 17%. September sales of the Advanced Derma line, launched in March, jumped more than 200% from its first month on the market.