CJ Olive Young foreign customer sales trends [Provided by CJ Olive Young]
CJ Olive Young foreign customer sales trends [Provided by CJ Olive Young]

CJ Olive Young announced Monday that it reached 1 trillion won ($726 million) in annual sales to foreign customers three months ahead of last year's pace.

Cumulative transactions from January through August totaled about 11.01 million, the company said. Measured against store operating hours, that works out to roughly one foreign customer purchase every 0.9 seconds.

Shoppers from 192 countries made purchases at its stores, according to tax-refund data from Global Tax Free. Foreign customers' share of total offline sales has also grown sharply — from 2 percent in 2022 to 33 percent as of August this year.

The top five countries by cumulative purchases this year were the United States, Singapore, Japan, China and Thailand. Customers bought an average of six products per visit, and one in three spent more than 100,000 won, qualifying as high-spending shoppers.

Foreign sales growth was also notable outside the Greater Seoul area. Foreign customer sales at Olive Young stores nationwide rose 47 percent year-on-year from January through August. Over the same period, stores in Gangwon Province posted foreign sales growth of 105 percent. Regions traditionally dominated by domestic tourism — including Gyeongju (88 percent), Daejeon (80 percent) and Jeonju (62 percent) — all recorded foreign sales growth above the national average.

The diversity of foreign shoppers also expanded in those regions. Gangwon Province stores drew customers from 85 countries this year, up from 76 last year, while Gyeongju stores attracted shoppers from 100 countries, up from 88.

Olive Young is expanding large-format stores of more than 660 square meters outside the Greater Seoul area. A proprietary survey conducted in May among foreign customers visiting stores in major tourist districts found that each foreign tourist visited an average of 2.8 Olive Young locations. As of August, the company operates 151 stores in tourist-heavy commercial districts nationwide, accounting for 10 percent of its total store count.

Olive Young said it plans to continue opening stores outside the Greater Seoul area that highlight each region's distinct character and offer differentiated in-store experiences. "As South Korea enters an era of 20 million inbound tourists, we will strengthen our role as the infrastructure of the K-tourism industry by leveraging large-format stores and locally themed specialty stores not only in Seoul but across the country," a company official said.

Foreign customers shop at the Olive Young Central Myeong-dong Town store during the Olive Young sale in June. [Provided by CJ Olive Young]
Foreign customers shop at the Olive Young Central Myeong-dong Town store during the Olive Young sale in June. [Provided by CJ Olive Young]

siuu@heraldcorp.com