The CJ Group Oner family visited the Myeong-dong commercial district, where foreigners account for the overwhelming share of spending, to conduct an on-site inspection. With CJ Olive Young set to open its first U.S. store, the move is seen as an effort to directly assess K-beauty's potential for overseas expansion.
According to the CJ Group newsroom and others on the 29th, CJ Group Chairman Lee Jay-hyun, his eldest son Lee Sun-ho, head of CJ Group Future Planning Group, and Olive Young CEO Lee Sun-jung, among other senior executives, visited CJ Olive Young's "Central Myeong-dong Town" in Myeong-dong, Seoul, on the morning of the 26th.
The reasoning behind executives visiting the Myeong-dong commercial district is that it serves as a global strategy testbed to gauge Olive Young's K-beauty and K-lifestyle consumption trends. The itinerary that day was also organized around the purchasing patterns of global tourists. Lee reviewed Olive Young's brand-nurturing strategy while touring the color cosmetics category spaces favored by global Gen Z, and then visited spaces covering the broader K-lifestyle, including food and health supplements.
Lee also closely inspected the "Delight Project," a healthy snack brand that has become a must-buy item for foreign tourists, as well as displays for mask packs and sun care, which are core K-beauty items.
The place where Lee spent the most time was the "Mask Library," a specialized area where mask pack display shelves were expanded more than threefold. About 100 brands are arranged like a library so consumers can directly explore products suited to their skin type.
When a manager explained that, moving beyond a sheet-pack-centered market, they are leading new trends such as toner pads and pack cleansers to broaden growth opportunities for onboarded brands and to foster indie brands that can succeed in global markets, Lee responded by setting direction, saying, "We must build a similarly sustainable K-beauty ecosystem in the U.S. market."
In the sun care specialty zone "Sun Everything," Lee urged, "I hope it will serve as a strong bridgehead so that mega brands such as d'Alba and Round Lab, which generate more than 100 billion won in sales at Olive Young alone, can also emerge in global markets."
Lee also showed keen interest in the "global branding" space, which spotlights specific brands on a quarterly basis. In response to a plan to use the consumption reactions of foreign visitors to Korea as a testbed to further advance future global expansion support programs, Lee reportedly said, "That's a really good idea."
In addition, Lee repeatedly stressed the implementation of O2O services linked to the "Olive Young Global Mall" (reverse direct purchase mall), which is available in 150 countries worldwide, saying, "This kind of innovation DNA must be transplanted without fail into stores in the United States as well."