Why Are Tourists Going to Pharmacies After Olive Young?

Myeongdong’s shopping route no longer ends at Olive Young.

Visitors carrying Olive Young bags now walk into nearby pharmacies while checking product photos saved on their phones. English, Chinese and Japanese signs appear at entrances. Inside, some pharmacies use open shelves, baskets, bestseller displays, category signs and tax-refund notices that feel closer to beauty retail than to the traditional image of a neighborhood pharmacy.

But calling these stores “Olive Young with medicine” misses the more important change.

The change is not only in what these pharmacies sell. It is in how they help shoppers narrow a decision. A visitor may discover an ingredient, product or trend at Olive Young or on social media, then enter a pharmacy with a more specific question: Does this fit my concern, and how should I use it?

K-SELECTIVE visited three pharmacies in Myeongdong in September 2026. From the street they can look like part of the same K-pharmacy boom. In practice, each store guides the buying decision differently.

Key Insights

DISCOVERY → DECISION

From discovery to decision support

Olive Young is built around discovery, rankings and product comparison. Tourist-focused pharmacies increasingly add another layer: narrowing a skin or health concern into a smaller set of choices.

COMPARE · ANALYZE · ASK

Three models, three ways to choose

Ready Young leads with scale and merchandising, Berry New with skin analysis, and New Sketch with direct pharmacist consultation.

RETAIL ≠ MEDICAL

Retail convenience is not medical equivalence

Cosmetics, supplements and medicines can sit close together visually, but they require different checks on use, precautions and suitability.

Pharmacy Spending Is Rising Faster Than Visitor Numbers

South Korea received 10,709,919 international visitors in the first half of 2026, up 21.3% from the same period a year earlier. Foreign-card tourism spending reached KRW 10.039 trillion, an increase of 50.8%.

Pharmacy spending produced an even sharper signal. BC Card analyzed transactions from about 3.3 million overseas cardholders and reported a 1,176.9% year-on-year increase in pharmacy spending during the first half of 2026.

That figure needs context. It is based on one card-company sample, and a low starting base may have amplified the percentage. It does not mean that total pharmacy sales across South Korea increased twelvefold.

Korea Tourism Data Lab figures point to another characteristic. In May 2026, pharmacies represented 12.9% of foreign medical spending but 69.8% of transactions. That suggests a different pattern from hospital or clinic spending: pharmacies are becoming low-ticket, high-frequency stops inside a wider travel-shopping journey.

The statistics explain the scale of the shift. The field visit explains what shoppers are actually doing once they walk through the door.

The Same Trend, Three Different Retail Experiences

Ready Young Pharmacy — Comparison at Scale

Ready Young is a large-format pharmacy covering approximately 120 pyeong, or about 397 square meters. Its broad sales floor, bestseller displays and skin, beauty and nutrition categories allow visitors to browse first and ask questions later.

During our visit, a concentrated PDRN display included PDRN RX creams, sun essences and ampoule-type products. The interesting point was not simply the number of products. PDRN was functioning as a retail search term. Visitors could arrive with “PDRN” already in mind and begin from the shelf before knowing which formulation or category actually suited their purpose.

The strength of this model is obvious: shoppers can compare many products in one place. The weakness is equally clear. Bestseller signs, familiar ingredients and social-media recognition can easily begin to substitute for understanding what the product actually is.

Ready Young is the clearest fit for visitors who want to compare widely. But once a shortlist is made, the next question should be whether each item is a cosmetic, supplement or medicine—and whether the use and precautions differ.

Myeongdong Berry New Pharmacy — Making the Recommendation Process Visible

Berry New begins from a different point. Its consultation flow is organized around skin analysis → explanation → product recommendation → purchase.

Instead of beginning with “What is famous?”, the visitor begins with their current skin condition. A screen and numerical results make the reasoning behind the recommendation easier to follow. Among the three stores, Berry New made the link between observation and product suggestion the most visible.

That visibility can make a recommendation feel more grounded, but an in-store skin scan is still a consultation aid, not a medical diagnosis. Persistent, worsening or clinically significant symptoms require a dermatologist.

Berry New’s value is therefore not the size of its assortment. It is the attempt to make why a product is being recommended easier for the shopper to understand.

New Sketch Pharmacy — The Pharmacist as the Filter

New Sketch is smaller than the other two pharmacies, and that changes the shopping experience immediately.

Rather than sorting through a large display alone, a visitor can show a product photo, explain a skin concern or ask about a category. The pharmacist then narrows the options and explains the differences.

The defining feature here is not the number of “hidden pharmacy finds.” It is the extent to which conversation shapes the purchase decision.

For overseas visitors with limited Korean or limited knowledge of product categories, that can be especially useful. The shopper does not need to decode an entire shelf first. The pharmacist acts as the filter.

What These Pharmacies Add After Olive Young

The three pharmacies do not replace Olive Young. They serve a different stage of the same buying journey.

Olive Young is strong at discovery: rankings, reviews, promotions, brands and a huge amount of choice. A tourist-focused pharmacy becomes useful after that discovery phase produces a more specific concern.

A visitor may arrive with a screenshot of a PDRN product, a question about acne, pigmentation, post-procedure care, supplements or an over-the-counter medicine. The pharmacy’s role is to turn that broad interest into a product category, a smaller shortlist and clearer instructions.

Ready Young does this through scale and merchandising. Berry New uses skin analysis. New Sketch relies on direct pharmacist consultation.

This is where the K-pharmacy trend becomes more interesting than a single viral product. The shopping journey now crosses cosmetics, topical care, supplements and medicine. Those categories can sit side by side visually, but they are not interchangeable.

Similar packaging—or even the same PDRN label—does not establish the same function, formulation, concentration, expected result or safety profile.

Photography Restrictions Are Also a Retail Signal

During this field visit, Berry New and New Sketch did not allow interior photography. Store representatives linked the restriction to increasing competition and to the value of their displays and operating methods.

That limitation is itself revealing. If tourist pharmacies were competing only on inventory, photographing shelves would carry little strategic value. The restrictions suggest that merchandising, consultation flow and multilingual service are becoming competitive assets in their own right.

One tourist-focused pharmacy stated in a public interview that more than 95% of its customers were from overseas and that it employed staff who could respond in English, Chinese and Japanese. This is the store’s own figure, not an average for Myeongdong or the three stores in this article. But it shows how multilingual consultation is moving from an optional convenience to a core operating function.

For this article, K-SELECTIVE used permitted interior photographs at Ready Young and exterior or entrance images for Berry New and New Sketch. No restricted interior was reconstructed or replaced with a look-alike image.

What Do Overseas Visitors Gain From a Pharmacy?

The most important distinction is not between “beauty store” and “pharmacy.” It is between product categories that require different decisions.

Decision point	Olive Young	Tourist-focused pharmacy
Starting point	Discovering popular products and new brands	Addressing a specific skin or health concern
Main decision tools	Rankings, reviews, promotions and brand displays	Pharmacist consultation, skin analysis and explanations of ingredients and use
Typical behavior	Browsing first, then adding products to a basket	Showing a photo or describing a concern, then requesting options
Central question	“What is popular now?”	“What fits my concern, and how should I use it?”
Main risk	Following a trend into an unnecessary purchase	Mistaking medicine for cosmetics or using it incorrectly

The two channels serve different stages of the buying process: Olive Young supports discovery, while a pharmacy helps visitors narrow and use a product safely.

What Should a Visitor Check Before Buying?

The most important distinction is not between “beauty store” and “pharmacy.” It is between product categories that require different decisions.

• Cosmetics: Check the full ingredient list, skin compatibility and intended use. Popularity is not evidence that a formula suits every skin type.
• Health supplements: Check the approved function, dosage and possible interaction with current medication. Watch for duplicate ingredients across products.
• Over-the-counter medicine: Confirm the indication, duration, contraindications and adverse effects. Tell the pharmacist about symptoms, current medication and allergies.
• Prescription medicine: Confirm whether a physician’s diagnosis and prescription are required. Do not treat prescription products as casual tourist purchases.

Before asking “What is the most popular product?”, a better sequence is: What category is this? Why is it being recommended for my concern? How should I use it? What precautions apply?

Travelers should also check whether their destination country restricts the ingredient or quantity they intend to carry home.

The value of a tourist-focused pharmacy is not that it guarantees the “right” product. It is that it can make the decision process faster and more legible. The final choice still depends on product category, symptoms, medical history, allergies, current medication and how the item will actually be used.

K-SELECTIVE VIEW

Myeongdong’s K-pharmacy boom is not simply a story about tourists buying more medicine or discovering another shopping destination.

The stronger signal is the rise of decision-support retail.

A shopper can discover a product at Olive Young or on social media, then walk into a pharmacy and ask someone—or a system—to narrow the choice. Ready Young does that through comparison at scale. Berry New makes the recommendation process visible through skin analysis. New Sketch puts the pharmacist at the center of the decision.

That means the most useful question is no longer, “Which Myeongdong pharmacy is the most famous?”

It is: Do you want to compare, analyze or ask?

The answer points to a different kind of store—and explains why pharmacies are becoming a meaningful second stop in Korea’s beauty-shopping journey.