Why does every Olive Young store carry different products?

Olive Young runs four store types — Innovation, Town, Specialty, and Standard — and curates inventory based on commercial-zone customer data. Premium and luxury lines plus new brands hit Town and Innovation stores first. Standard stores stick to fast-moving basic SKUs. Even within the same Myeongdong neighbourhood, every store has a different job.

Which Olive Young has the biggest product selection?

By sales floor area, Myeongdong Town (about 1,157 sq m) is the largest, followed by Hongdae Town (about 991 sq m). If you count experiential space, Beauty Mansion Seongsu — which opened in June 2026 — is the biggest at roughly 1,653 sq m across 4 floors. But area is not the same as stock depth: experiential stores burn floor space on try-out zones, not shelves.

How do I avoid the crowds?

Foreigners account for roughly 95% of Myeongdong store sales. Peak crush is 2pm–7pm, when tour-group foot traffic peaks. Even within Myeongdong, stores one block off the main drag are noticeably quieter. And if you are after the same products, a Standard store in Euljiro or Jongno is practically empty by comparison.

How Many Olive Young Stores Are in Seoul? 9 in Myeongdong, 7 in Hongdae — and the Store-Tier Secret That Explains Why Every Branch Is Different (2026)

Q: How many Olive Young stores are in Seoul?

Olive Young does not publish an official store count by Seoul district. But they do share numbers by tourist commercial zone — 9 in Myeongdong, 6 around Seongsu-dong, 7 in the Hongdae area. Nationwide there were 1,367 stores as of Q2 2026. In Myeongdong, some branches are literally a 1- to 3-minute walk from each other.

The short version

1,367 stores nationwide (Q2 2026). 9 are packed into Myeongdong, 6 in Seongsu-dong, 7 around Hongdae.
Olive Young stores fall into four tiers — Innovation, Town, Specialty, Standard. The tier decides how deep the shelves go.
Even within Myeongdong, every store has a different role — K-pop zones, luggage storage, a mask-pack library. They are not clones.

So how many Olive Young stores are there, exactly?

The official number is 1,367 nationwide, as of Q2 2026. Olive Young does not break that down by Seoul district, but tourist-zone figures confirmed through press reports and company announcements give us a clear picture.

1,367

Stores nationwide (Q2 2026)

Stores in Myeongdong alone

95%

Foreigner share of Myeongdong store sales (2026)

1–3min

Walking distance between Myeongdong stores

Here’s the twist: the total store count is actually shrinking. It peaked at 1,394 in Q3 2025, then dipped to 1,381 (Q4), 1,369 (Q1 2026), and 1,367 (Q2) — three straight quarters of decline. But this is not a retreat. It’s a reshuffle. Olive Young has been merging two small stores into one big one, or relocating into larger spaces nearby. Stores under renovation drop out of the operating count at quarter-end, so the headline number dips.

The strategy pivot: from "Olive-zone" to flagship clustering

For years Olive Young built what locals call an "Olive-zone" — a neighbourhood so saturated with stores you could never be more than a few minutes from one. In 2026 the playbook changed. Instead of one on every block, the company is concentrating large-format, experiential stores in tourist and key commercial zones. Industry watchers expect the count to bounce back to around 1,400 by year-end once the current wave of renovations and relocations wraps up.

Myeongdong — 9 stores inside a 500 m radius, 1–3 minutes apart on foot

Myeongdong has nine Olive Young stores. Central Myeongdong Town is a 2-minute walk from Myeongdong Station branch. Between them sit Myeongdong Central and Myeongdong Street — barely a minute apart.

This is not mindless expansion. It’s role-splitting within a single commercial zone. Think of it like Don Quijote in Japanese tourist districts: multiple stores, each with a different angle, soaking up visitor spend through sheer density plus extended hours.

🏆

Myeongdong Town

The largest Olive Young in Korea at about 1,157 sq m. Global flagship services, and the No. 1 store by revenue across all Olive Young locations in 2025.

🧴

Central Myeongdong Town

3 floors. Built around K-beauty discovery. Runs a dedicated Mask Library, a derma-cosmetics zone, and a beauty-device zone — each with its own floor space.

🎤

Myeongdong Station

Foreign-tourist focused. Runs a K-pop zone. Ground floor of Toegyero Milliore.

🧳

Myeongdong 2-ga

Offers luggage storage. Designed to catch travellers on their final shopping run before heading to the airport.

📍 Open in Naver Map

  Myeongdong-zone sales grew at a compound annual rate of 109% from 2023 to 2025. The foreigner share of revenue climbed from the 80% range in 2023 to roughly 95% by 2026. The Myeongdong Olive Young stores are, for all practical purposes, no longer shops for locals.

Also confirmed in the area: Myeongdong Central (18 Myeongdong 8na-gil), Myeongdong Street, Myeongdong Daero (120 Toegyero), and Myeongdong Station (115 Toegyero), among others.

Hongdae — 7 stores, and the country's second-largest branch

Seven stores dot the Hongdae area. Confirmed locations include Donggyo-dong, Hongdae Airport Railroad Station, Hongdae Intersection, Hongdae Main Gate, Hongdae Central, and Hongdae Entrance — plus two large-format specialty stores stacked on top.

🏢 The two big Hongdae flagships

Store	Size	Layout	Vibe
Hongdae Town	991 sq m	Floors 1–3	Second-largest Olive Young in Korea. Ground floor: collab pop-up zone (changes monthly). 2F: Luxe Edit, Fragrance Bar, Trending Now. 3F: Men’s Total Zone, Hair Styling Bar, K-Beauty Now.
Hongdae Playground	915 sq m	3 floors above ground	The entire ground floor — 330 sq m — is Men’s Edit, the largest men’s grooming zone in any Olive Young.

Hongdae Town opened in April 2024 and sits right behind Myeongdong Town (1,157 sq m) as Korea’s second-largest Olive Young. Here’s why that matters for travellers: if you’re staying in Hongdae, you honestly don’t need to trek to Myeongdong.

📍 Open in Naver Map

Seongsu — 6 stores, and the experiential laboratory

The Seongsu-dong cluster hit six stores on 30 June 2026, when Olive Young Beauty Mansion Seongsu opened its doors.

Olive Young N Seongsu (opened November 2024) — The company’s content testbed. The makeup studio, perfume library, Men’s Edit, and K-POP NOW zone all debuted here first. Whatever works gets rolled out to other stores.
Beauty Mansion Seongsu (opened June 2026) — Roughly 1,653 sq m of total floor area across 4 levels. Ground floor: shop-in-shops and pop-ups. 2F: colour cosmetics. 3F: skincare. 4F: beauty books and a vinyl-listening lounge. Runs a beauty-device studio and an “Advanced Derma Consulting” service built around 3D skin diagnostics.
Seongsu Yeonbang — A design-forward store that leans into the neighbourhood’s industrial-chic character; officially promoted by the company as a local-vibe specialty location.

Traveller's cheat sheet

If you want to catch new brands and limited releases first, the pipeline goes: Olive Young N Seongsu → Town stores → Standard stores.
Experiential stores like Beauty Mansion Seongsu can be huge yet carry fewer SKUs on the shelf than a Town store. You go there to play, not to stock up.
Myeongdong peak is 2pm–7pm. If you want the same products in peace, hit a Standard store in Euljiro or Jongno instead.

Why every store stocks different things — the 4-tier system

Olive Young officially divides its offline stores into four types. This is the reason you walk into one branch and find everything, then walk into another and wonder where half the brands went.

🏷️ The 4 Olive Young store types (official company classification)

Type	Count	Purpose	Product depth	Flagship examples in Seoul
Innovation	A handful	Testbed for new content. Makeup studios, perfume libraries — service experiments live here first.	New and experimental products land here earliest.	Olive Young N Seongsu
Town	~20	Large-format stores in landmark locations. Carry premium and luxury lines.	Deepest — premium brands included.	Myeongdong Town, Central Myeongdong Town, Hongdae Town, Gangnam Town, Central Gangnam Town, Garosu-gil Town
Specialty	Many	Design-forward spaces reflecting local character + extended MD in a specific category.	Unusually deep in one category.	Seongsu Yeonbang, Hongdae Playground (men’s), Anguk Station (K-Food Zone)
Standard	The vast majority	Standardised store plan, category-optimised per commercial zone.	Fast-moving basic SKUs.	Yeouido IFC, Donam Central, etc.

The number that matters is “~20.” Out of 1,367 stores nationwide, roughly 20 — that’s barely 1.5% — carry premium lines and the broadest product range. When you cannot find a luxe brand or a new limited edition at a random branch, it’s usually not because it sold out. It was never sent there in the first place.

Commercial-zone data shapes the shelves

Olive Young builds store-level assortments on 15 million membership accounts and over 100 million annual transactions. Here is what that looks like in practice:

Anguk Station — A K-Food Zone centred on gim-bugak (fried seaweed snacks) and traditional sweets. Tailored for the palace-tourist footpath.
Central Myeongdong Town — A dedicated Mask Library (nothing but sheet masks), plus separate derma-cosmetics and beauty-device zones.
Hongdae Playground — The entire ground floor — 330 sq m — is Men's Edit, a men's grooming zone unmatched in scale anywhere in the chain.
Gangnam Town — Food & Drink Zone, brand pop-up zone. Garosu-gil Town — Luxe Edit Zone.

What travellers actually need to know

How to pick the right store, every time

Only hitting one? Make it a Town store. Myeongdong Town (1,157 sq m), Hongdae Town (991 sq m), and Gangnam Town have the widest product breadth, full stop.
No "Town" in the name? It's almost certainly a Standard store. All the core hits will be there, but premium and limited-run items probably won't.
Inventory is store-level, not chain-wide. Use the Olive Young app's in-store stock check and "pickup" feature to avoid walking to a branch that never had what you want.
If you need language support, go big. The 8-language AI shopping-assistant kiosks rolled out first at multi-floor stores with high foreigner traffic (Dongdaemun History & Culture Park Station, Apgujeong Central, Ewha Central were the first wave). The AI interpretation service covers 38 languages.

The headline stat — 9 stores crammed into Myeongdong — is less important than what it signals: those 9 stores are not the same store. It is genuinely common to strike out on a product at one branch and find it sitting on a shelf two blocks away. On the flip side, one thorough sweep of a Town store beats darting between five Standard stores on the city’s edge.

Sources

CJ Olive Young official website — Domestic platform (4 store types, ~1,370 stores)
Newspim (2026-07-31) — Olive Young halts "Olive-zone" expansion, pivots to large-format and experiential stores (quarterly store counts)
Financial News (2026-05-10) — Olive Young dots every corner of Myeongdong (9 Myeongdong stores, 95% foreigner sales)
Seoul Economic Daily (2026-06-29) — 6 stores in Seongsu alone — Olive Young opens new location in North Seongsu
CJ Olive Young Newsroom — Hongdae Town grand opening (991 sq m; Myeongdong Town 1,157 sq m), Hongdae Playground: men's curation specialty store
Seoul Economy TV (2026-07-22) — 1,300-store Olive Young sharpens commercial-zone strategy (Anguk Station K-Food Zone, Central Myeongdong Town Mask Library)
Bizwatch (2026-07-08) — Olive Young breaks the language barrier — AI-powered foreigner shopping (8-language kiosks, 38-language interpretation)

Reference date: 3 August 2026. Store counts based on Q2 2026 company disclosures. Per-zone store counts fluctuate as renovations and relocations progress.