OLIVE YOUNG
Olive Young, Century City, CA.
Olive Young is South Korea’s premier health and beauty retail chain—essentially the K-beauty equivalent of Sephora or Ulta, combined with a modern pharmacy vibe.
Owned by the CJ Group conglomerate, it launched in 1999 as South Korea’s first health and beauty drugstore. Today, it commands over 70% of the domestic market share with more than 1,300 physical stores across the country.
Why It’s Significant
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K-Beauty Trendsetter: Olive Young acts as the ultimate launchpad for Korean skincare and cosmetics brands.Breaking onto Olive Young’s best-seller charts often dictates global K-beauty trends (pimple patches, sunscreens,toner pads, and serums).
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Massive Selection: Stores carry everything from indie viral skincare brands (like Anua, Beauty of Joseon, Round Lab, and COSRX) to makeup, hair care, body products, inner beauty supplements, and viral Korean snacks.
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Global Footprint: Beyond its physical stores in Korea, Olive Young operates a popular Global Online Shop that ships directly to over 150 countries, making local Korean skincare accessible worldwide.
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Olive Young operates two standalone brick-and-mortar stores in the United States:
Pasadena, California, its 8,647-square-foot flagship U.S. location opened in May 2026, and Century City, California, located at the Westfield Century City mall, which opened shortly after the Pasadena launch. -
Olive Young also expanded its physical retail presence across the U.S. through a partnership with Sephora to feature dedicated shop-in-shop sections (“Olive Young K-Beauty Edit”) across roughly 580 Sephora locations nationwide.
Skin Scan, OLIVE YOUNG, Pasadena, CA.
| Tell us about your founder and their philosophy.
Founded in 1999, OLIVE YOUNG has grown into Korea’s leading beauty and lifestyle retailer, with more than 1,360 stores nationwide and a digital platform reaching customers in 150 countries. Built on a deep understanding of consumers and a commitment to making innovative, high-quality beauty products accessible, OLIVE YOUNG combines retail expertise with data-driven curation to identify emerging trends and bring the best of K-beauty to consumers around the world. Guided by its vision to become a global beauty and health trendsetting company, OLIVE YOUNG is committed to promoting a healthy and beautiful lifestyle for everyone. Beyond business growth, the company strives to create lasting social value by fostering mutual growth with its partners, supporting local communities, and advancing environmentally responsible business practices. Tell us about your brand, your point of difference and your unique point of view on beauty. With 27 years of expertise in beauty and lifestyle retail, OLIVE YOUNG stands apart through its distinctive approach to product curation and consumer discovery. Rather than simply selling beauty products, we create a “K-beauty playground” where customers can freely browse, test, compare, and discover products they may not have known they needed. Our stores are designed around specific beauty needs, allowing customers to explore products by ingredient, function, and texture. Interactive experiences, from hands-on product testing to personalized skin and scalp analysis, help shoppers better understand their needs and find products that suit their individual routines. At the heart of our philosophy is “All Live Young,” the belief that beauty should be fun, accessible, and empowering. We see beauty not as a one-size-fits-all standard, but as a personal journey of exploration and self-expression, where everyone can discover what works best for them. We know that Korean Beauty has been exceedingly popular in the U.S., how many stores do you currently have worldwide and in the U.S.? What is your strategic vision for the US market over the next 3-5 years? Globally, we operate an omnichannel ecosystem with over 1,360 physical stores across Korea and the OLIVE YOUNG Global e-commerce platform, which ships to 150 countries. The U.S. is not only the world’s largest beauty market but also one of the most influential in shaping global beauty trends and consumer behavior, making it a natural strategic next step for us. In the first half of 2025, over half of our global sales were generated by U.S. customers, driving over 40% of our total sales growth. Based on this strong response from U.S. customers, we opened two stores in the U.S. in 2026, located in Pasadena and Century City. Building on this momentum, our vision is to open at least five more California locations by the first half of 2027 before selectively expanding our unique retail DNA into additional markets. Along with the first U.S. store opening, OLIVE YOUNG also debuted its U.S. e-commerce platform. The OLIVE YOUNG U.S. online store offers benefits such as free shipping on orders over $35, promotional campaigns, product reviews, and rewards programs. Customers across the U.S. can enjoy shopping OLIVE YOUNG products with no additional shipping or import duty burden, creating a more convenient and accessible way to discover beauty and lifestyle products. Tell us about your stores. What is your average store size and what are the key brands you carry? Color cosmetics, skincare, fragrance? Our stores are intentionally designed to be curation-led rather than brand-led, making it easy and approachable for customers, even those unfamiliar with K-beauty, to explore products step-by-step. Currently, skincare is the category resonating most strongly with U.S. consumers. What began primarily with an interest in sheet masks has rapidly expanded into a full routine-based approach encompassing double cleansing, toner pads, essences, sun care, and beauty devices. Interestingly, we’ve found that about 70% of the top-purchased items among global visitors shopping in Korea overlap with what Korean consumers buy themselves. This highlights that U.S. shoppers want to experience authentic, real K-beauty routines. To support this, our U.S. stores are organized around key skincare steps and feature interactive services like our AI-powered SKIN SCAN, allowing customers to receive personalized skin analysis and build routines perfectly tailored to their specific needs. Our Pasadena store spans 8,647 square feet, while our Westfield Century City location covers 2,694 square feet. Both offer a curated mix of trending K-beauty products and interactive experiences, including our SKIN SCAN service, which provides personalized skin analysis to help customers find products suited to their needs. The SKIN SCAN service has been a key driver of in-store engagement. On average, 187 consultations are performed per day via SKIN SCAN in the Pasadena location, and 113 in Century City, underscoring strong consumer interest in experiential beauty retail. How do you train and educate your beauty advisors in the U.S.? To ensure we pass along the authentic DNA of OLIVE YOUNG, we started by hosting a hands-on training session in Korea for the managers and assistant managers of our U.S. stores. They were paired with local Korean staff to shadow store operations and truly understand our workflows. We also held dedicated sessions in the U.S. to deeply familiarize our staff with Korean brands and products so they can offer the best recommendations. Moving forward, we are establishing an ongoing, sustainable learning system driven by our headquarters covering HQ strategies, promotions, product knowledge, and sales and service skills. This ensures our team members continuously strengthen their capabilities and can confidently guide customers through their beauty journeys. Where do you see your stores primarily? In suburban areas, urban areas? We strategically target vibrant, diverse communities that serve as global epicenters for fashion, beauty, and wellness trends. For our initial U.S. expansion, the greater Los Angeles area was the perfect fit because its population naturally embraces and amplifies new cultural movements and lifestyles. Within that market, we specifically chose locations like Pasadena because of its highly engaged community. The consumers there are deeply invested in personal wellness and are very open to the kind of experiential, discovery-driven retail that OLIVE YOUNG offers. |
