Seoul Economic Daily: new retail channels open doors for Korea's indie beauty brands
On 12 October Seoul Economic Daily described Musinsa Beauty, Daiso, Off Beauty and eBay Japan as new routes for indie brands facing high entry costs.
Published
2 November 2026 — Seoul Economic Daily reported on 12 October that new retail channels are giving Korean independent beauty brands routes to customers beyond the largest chain. An indie brand official told the paper that getting into Olive Young through a well-known YouTuber can cost up to KRW 80 million, which makes it hard for start-ups.
The channels named
- Musinsa Beauty's Hongdae flagship, opened in September, carries about 600 beauty brands, 70 per cent of them indie labels, and passed KRW 250 million in cumulative sales within three days.
- Daiso's cosmetics range grew to about 2,200 products in August from roughly 1,420 at the end of 2025, with items priced at KRW 5,000 or less.
- Off Beauty buys inventory outright to keep prices low and was on track to exceed 50 stores nationwide this year.
- eBay Japan's Mega Debut programme introduces four new brands weekly and reached JPY 6.4 billion in cumulative sales.
The paper added that small and mid-sized companies made USD 8.3 billion, about 73 per cent, of Korea's record USD 11.4 billion cosmetics exports last year. In other words, the independent brands that struggle to find a shelf at home are the same companies carrying most of the export growth, which is why new routes to market matter to them.
THE CAST shopping perspective
For a shopper, more channels mean more places where an unfamiliar brand can appear. They also mean more places to check. Whichever store you use, look for a product page that names the exact item and option, and compare the final delivery total before paying. THE CAST is one of those channels, written in English for people who are not shopping in Korean. We would rather a shopper compared two stores and chose well than ordered from the first page that appeared.