Olive Young and Daiso drive the ”K-shopping” boom... ”Online re-import” stalled due to authentication issues (Korea)

As the global influence of K-culture, centered on K-POP and K-TV series, expands, consumption by foreigners visiting Korea is exploding.
In the offline K-beauty market, sales to foreigners reached a record high, and "K-shopping trips" have become established as a tourist destination.
The market for "reverse cross-border e-commerce," where products are purchased directly, has not yet grown sufficiently, and there are voices in the industry calling for the creation of an environment that can connect demand demonstrated offline to online demand.
According to CJ Olive Young, sales to foreigners from January to November this year exceeded 1 trillion won, a 26-fold increase over the full year of 2022.
According to Global Tax Free (GTF), a tax refund agency, approximately 88% of foreigners who purchase cosmetics in Korea are online.
The number of foreigners who received refunds reached 190 countries, including UN member states. There is also a change in shopping style. 40% of foreign customers visited two stores.
The percentage of customers who visited more than 10 stores and purchased more than 10 brands exceeded 30%. Recently, "OluDam" has become abbreviated to "OliveYoung," "Daiso," and "Musinsa."
It is gaining attention as a tourist destination. However, the situation is different online. Global consumers who are favorable towards Korea are actually buying Korean-made products.
When trying to buy goods online, structural barriers stand in the way. Korean identity verification based on mobile phone numbers makes it difficult for foreigners to register as members, and the lack of support for global payment methods and simplified payments
This leads to abandonment at the payment stage. The complexity of returns and after-sales service also contributes to a low repurchase rate. In fact, according to the Bank of Korea, the amount of direct purchases of Korean products by overseas consumers last year was 1.6 trillion yen.
0 billion won, which is only 20% of the amount spent by Korean consumers on overseas e-commerce during the same period (8.1 trillion won).
The market is expected to reach $7.9 trillion in 2030, but South Korea's reverse cross-border e-commerce has not been able to fully capitalize on this growth.
There are also concerns that the imposition of a maximum 15% tariff on goods will slow down the momentum of reverse cross-border e-commerce, which is centered on North America. To solve this problem, the industry is working to develop reverse cross-border e-commerce using AI.
It presents innovation as a key solution.
The SaaS platform offers multilingual translation, currency conversion, and country-specific
Payment options and local tax systems can be automatically reflected to generate sales pages for overseas markets.
IO will automate AI-based promotions tailored to overseas targets, boosting K-brand exposure and sales.
AI is rapidly replacing the bottlenecks of registration, payment, and marketing, which were previously obstacles. Experts emphasize that the role of the government also needs to change.
Beyond the core policies, efforts will be made to create an environment that supports innovation in AI solutions in the private sector, including AI marketing education, the introduction of global UX standards, and the opening of public data and APIs.
Offline, foreign consumption is already becoming more sophisticated, particularly in the areas of K-beauty and K-wellness.
An industry insider said, "The explosive interest in K-culture is once again fueling the online boom in Korea.
The next step is to connect it to shopping," he said. "Creating an environment for reverse cross-border e-commerce is no longer an option but a necessity."