Olive Better ups the ante with focus on wellness products

An Olive Better store in Jung District, central Seoul, on Jan. 29, a day ahead of its official opening. Olive Better is Olive Young’s new wellness-focused brand. [CHO YONG-JUN]

 
Imagine Olive Young with fewer lipsticks but more vitamins, fancy teas, protein bars and melatonin gummies. Olive Better is the new health-conscious spinoff by Korea’s leading beauty retailer, launching Friday with the aim of introducing wellness products to the masses.
 
The first brick-and-mortar Olive Better store is located in Gwanghwamun D-Tower near Gwanghwamun Station in central Seoul. The brand shared plans to open its second store near Gangnam Station in southern Seoul, but Olive Better did not confirm any timeline.
 
While its parent brand Olive Young is more synonymous with its younger and female-oriented demographics, Olive Better targets a broader range of consumers, including those in their 30s and 40s, as well as male shoppers who may not have visited Olive Young so frequently.
 
Since opening its brick-and-mortar stores in 1999, Olive Young has always branded itself as a “health and beauty” focused platform. However, its shelves were mostly focused on skincare, cosmetics and other beauty items while supplements and vitamins were positioned in the corner. The chain has established itself as the leader in K-beauty both at home and abroad.
 
That was the reason why CJ Olive Young decided to launch a whole new brand and store, differentiating the two categories.
 
“As we decided to evolve the ‘health’ category in Olive Young to the expanded concept of ‘wellness,’ we needed an independent brand that allowed us to step out of the current frame,” Lee Dong-geun, in charge of Olive Young’s new growth retail, said during a press conference in central Seoul on Thursday.
 

An Olive Better store in Jung District, central Seoul, on Jan. 29, a day ahead of its official opening. Olive Better is Olive Young’s new wellness-focused brand. [CHO YONG-JUN]

 
Olive Better was also designed to help people understand the concept of wellness care and what to buy and consume to maintain that healthy lifestyle, in combination with the product curation that Olive Young is best known for.
 
But the launch of the new brand doesn’t mean that there will be drastic changes to Olive Young. The retailer told the Korea JoongAng Daily that Olive Young will continue to sell both beauty and health-related products on shelves — sometimes overlapping with the offerings at Olive Better — but most of the offerings will be distinct.
 
The Olive Better store felt completely different from Olive Young right from the entrance. The Gwanghamun store had its walls finished in yellow — reminiscent of the color of Vitamin C drinks  — alongside wooden stalls, unlike the modern and slightly grey Olive Young stores.
 

An Olive Better store in Jung District, central Seoul, on Jan. 29, a day ahead of its official opening. Olive Better is Olive Young’s new wellness-focused brand. [CHO YONG-JUN]

 
The first floor of the store focused on the concept of simple, with vitamin gummies, collagen gummies, melatonin gummies, protein snacks, vitamins that you mix with water and even extra-virgin olive oil sticks. They were mostly products from All The Better, a private brand from Olive Young.
 
Notably, there were also tasting sections for visitors to try out the virgin olive oil stick and lemon water sticks.
 
The larger second floor featured a wider range of products, including all kinds of healthy snacks, teabags, hair care products, toothpastes, chocolates, pajamas and sanitary products.
 

An Olive Better store in Jung District, central Seoul, on Jan. 29, a day ahead of its official opening. Olive Better is Olive Young’s new wellness-focused brand. [CHO YONG-JUN]

 
A significant portion of the second floor was dedicated to tea and coffee, with AmorePacific’s teahouse Osulloc taking a big presence in the scene. There were Osulloc tea tasting zones — similar in appearance to beer taps — that offered Jeju Matcha Milk Tea and Jeju Matcha Oat Blend for tasting.
 

An Olive Better store in Jung District, central Seoul, on Jan. 29, a day ahead of its official opening. Olive Better is Olive Young’s new wellness-focused brand. [CHO YONG-JUN]

 
With 3,000 products from 500 different brands, Olive Better aims to offer a diverse price range “from entry-level to premium.”
 
Olive Better will be operating as an “app-in-app” service within the existing Olive Young application, offering tailored content such as routine notifications to help users track their daily supplement intake.
 
“While it is difficult to share our revenue goal in numerical values, we believe that wellness is a market that will grow, and we are certain of the demand from our customers,” Lee said. “We are not just trying to test the possibilities, we are growing it as a proper industry.”
 

An Olive Better store in Jung District, central Seoul, on Jan. 29, a day ahead of its official opening. Olive Better is Olive Young’s new wellness-focused brand. [CHO YONG-JUN]

An Olive Better store in Jung District, central Seoul, on Jan. 29, a day ahead of its official opening. Olive Better is Olive Young’s new wellness-focused brand. [CHO YONG-JUN]

BY CHO YONG-JUN [[email protected]]