CJ Olive Young, South Korea’s top health and beauty store, has opened its first wellness-focused store in Seoul. This marks an inclination from just cosmetics to a broader focus on wellness, focusing on tapping into the fast-growing global wellness industry.
The new store, called "Olive Better," is located in the Gwanghwamun district of Seoul and offers wellness products and services. CJ Olive Young plans to open a second store in the Gangnam district later this year as part of their expansion.
The move shows the company’s shift from being a beauty store to a lifestyle and wellness platform, responding to increased interest in health since the COVID-19 pandemic. The store offers over 3,000 products from around 500 brands, including nutritional supplements and wellness-focused personal care items, under the theme of “healthy beauty.”
The store is designed to fill a gap in physical retail, where customers can get personal recommendations and directly try wellness products, something that’s been limited, even though the wellness market is growing fast.
CJ Olive Young, which operates nearly 1,400 stores across South Korea, has been successful in the country’s booming K-beauty industry. Now, the company is looking to grow in wellness, both in South Korea and internationally.
In May, the company will open its first store in the United States, in California, marking its entry into the U.S. market. The U.S. and Japan are major markets as demand for Korean beauty and wellness products escalates globally. CJ Olive Young also opened an office in Japan in 2024 to improve local distribution.
By expanding into wellness, CJ Olive Young hopes its well-established brand and network of stores will help it capture a larger share of the fast-growing global industry where beauty and health are increasingly linked.