Welcome to Setting Up Shop, a series in which we take you around the world to the most dynamic and emerging luxury shopping hubs, introduce you to the customers, and get an understanding of what makes the local market tick.
The taxis traveling along the wide, traffic-filled roads of South Korea’s capital may move at a glacial pace, but everything else in Seoul seems to zoom by. Besides the famously speedy wifi, the city is known for its dynamic music, fashion and beauty scenes, too.
Seoul’s population of 10 million has remained steady since the late ’80s. But recently, the city has become much busier thanks to the soft power boom of Korean culture enticing a record number of tourists to immerse themselves in K-pop and the likes. Tourist arrivals hit an all-time high in July 2025, with 1.36 million people flocking to the capital, up 23.1% year-on-year, per Visit Seoul.
As increased footfall translates to increased spending, brands are catching wind. “Shopping accounts for around 37.8% of tourist expenditure, making Seoul not only a trend incubator, but also a major retail destination for international visitors,” says Nick Bradstreet, head of Asia-Pacific retail at Savills. “The combination of rapid trend adoption and high tourist spending gives Seoul a competitive edge over other fashion capitals in Asia.”
With the luxury slowdown in China still underway, key players are leaning more heavily into Seoul. Louis Vuitton just opened its largest store ever — a six-floor megascape — in The Reserve in Shinsegae Main Store, underscoring LVMH’s commitment to the city. Luxury hospitality is also moving in, with Mandarin Oriental and Rosewood planning hotel openings in the next five years, while bringing more spendthrift tourists with them.
But it’s the cultural platform Seoul offers driving global players to the city. “Seoul stands out in fashion retail because of the powerful influence of K-pop and K-beauty, which drive awareness of local products and elevates them to global fame,” says Bradstreet. “What truly sets Seoul apart is the synergy between its young, trend-savvy consumer base and the worldwide reach of K-culture. Many trends originate here before spreading across Asia, which is why global brands often use Seoul as a testbed.”
For all its luxury firepower, the city is full of quirks and unique challenges, making it rocky territory for brands who show up unprepared. Here’s what to know before setting up shop in Seoul — and how to keep the lights on once you do.
The lowdown
Seoul’s fashion landscape is diverse and immersive, with insider multi-brand spaces, towering department stores, and a constant stream of openings and pop-ups to keep things novel and exciting. The chaebols — Korea’s flock of family-run conglomerates — dominate the department store scene, with Shinsegae, Lotte, Hyundai and Hanwha cementing themselves as the four biggest names. Disruptors are emerging, however, such as e-commerce group Musinsa, as even digital-native brands understand the importance of being in the city.
Through it all, experience is king. The point of having a store in Seoul is not to drive pure sales, but to create immersive flagship experiences that complement their online presence, says Bradstreet. “This shift has concentrated physical retail into high-impact neighborhoods such as Seongsu, Hannam, Dosan Park and Hongdae, where young locals and international visitors cluster,” he adds.
Thriving in Seoul today requires a dynamic approach that is ready to shift in line with consumers’ fickle tastes, while requiring a deep knowledge of the local market. The short-lived residencies of grocery giants Walmart and Carrefour, who couldn’t compete with local retailers, should serve as a warning sign. “It’s not easy, because Korean culture is really unique and the customer is a little picky,” says Jae Lee, a fashion business strategist and professor at Seoul’s Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT). “Brands that come here need to find the right distribution partner, otherwise it will be difficult,” he says, adding that players should factor in a “landing period” of a couple of years to get used to the market.
Both department and multi-brand stores in the city operate on a consignment basis, meaning that the sales responsibility lies on the supplier. “Our retail system is such that the department stores don’t buy the inventory,” says Madame Woo, founder and designer of Korean menswear brand Wooyoungmi. “Here, you need to survive on your own.”
On the flipside, Seoul’s department stores can also serve as powerful acceleration tools, especially for newer labels. Shop Amomento, a sophisticated multi-brand boutique with stores across Seoul, has a space in department store Shinsegae Gangnam. With its larger footfall and high-spending clientele, it provides a platform for Shop Amomento to familiarize customers with brands they might not have heard of. “Sometimes, we want to introduce a brand to our customers, but [in our standalone stores] the sell-through might not be good,” says Shop Amomento CEO Myeongsoo ‘MS’ Lee. “Having it in a department store [first] helps us to sell it and maintain our buy from that brand.”
The customer
Millennial and Gen Z consumers, who are neatly packaged in South Korea into a demographic called ‘MZ’, are Seoul’s core customer base. According to data from Euromonitor and Lotte Shopping, MZ consumers now account for over half of total luxury spending, with brands responding through experiential concept stores in districts like Seongsu and Dosan. “Seoul’s consumer base has become younger, more digitally native and highly influenced by social media,” says Bradstreet. “Many shoppers now discover brands online and visit physical stores for immersive experiences rather than just transactions.”
The stores that thrive in Seoul are the ones that give their customers a reason to visit. “Korean customers pick up and learn about brands very quickly, but they’re also very quick to dispose of brands once they’ve gotten tired of them,” says Woo. “Brands need to evolve quickly to keep our customers loyal to the brand.” Wooyoungmi recently opened a flagship store in Itaewon, complete with an in-house café, which it hopes will excite locals and tourists alike.
For a taste of how fast-paced things can be, look to Seongsu, the city’s current Gen Z hotspot. It’s predominantly Musinsa territory here: the e-commerce giant has its HQ in the neighborhood, and recently announced it would invest KRW 10 billion ($7 million) into the area with an aim to transform it into a major fashion hub.
“Customers around here are looking for various styles at a reasonable price, so they try a lot of things and follow the trends,” says Kyungrak Chae, head buyer at Musinsa-owned multi-brand store Empty. The racks in Empty’s four-floor space are filled with an eclectic mix of everything from emerging Japanese labels like Khoki and Dairiku, to London brands like Knwls. The idea is that the customer never gets bored. “The main trend is that there is no main trend. It depends on the people and it’s too fast,” adds Chae.
The right brands can thrive outside the main shopping clusters, too. Post Archive Faction (PAF) opened its first flagship store in 2022 in the unassuming neighborhood of Yaksu, right next to its HQ. Though footfall here is low compared to buzzier, more central areas, the proximity to the office allows workers to constantly check in with shop staff, regarding feedback and uptake on designs. “We get instant feedback from our managers and our store staff right to the head office, so we know what type of garments or silhouettes are working for the customers, and can adapt them for next season,” says Min Lee, the brand’s sales and marketing lead. It’s paying off: PAF has a customer conversion rate of between 40% and 50%, meaning almost half of the people who enter the store end up buying something.
It’s also crucial to keep Korea’s cultural nuances in mind when fostering relationships with customers — especially regular ones. “There’s no small talk culture here, and Korean people are very shy,” says MS, who, as well as Shop Amomento, operates Amomento the brand, which is designed by his sister ‘MK’. “That’s why it’s very important to make connections, so you can make loyal customers who will visit a few times per month. If the store has that base, then they can stretch out.”
City quirks
Seoul’s best stores are those built to be photographed and shared. Whether it’s the lush indoor gardens at The Hyundai department store, or the in-store cafés of seemingly every luxury brand, retail spots across the city are primed for selfies, social media and shareability.
“Instagram has changed the culture,” says FIT’s Lee. Luxury brand cafés — from Café Dior in Apgujeong to Le Café Louis Vuitton in Myeongdong — serve both as fun tourist destinations and gateways for younger consumers. “It’s a small luxury that young generations can enjoy. They cannot buy a Chanel handbag, but they can eat at the Dior or the Louis Vuitton café. So for a hundred bucks, they can experience the brand and its culture.”
Art-focused stores are also booming. When I visit the Sinsa Dong flagship of cult Korean brand Ader Error, the store attendant excitedly ushers me into the changing room to reveal the spaceship-style bunk beds hiding inside, before taking my phone to snap a photo. It is more art gallery than store, with six floors devoted to immersive installations and a smattering of clothes, sneakers and accessories throughout.
“Shopping in Seoul has shifted from transactional to experiential,” says Eunice Kim, marketing manager at J.Lindeberg. “Consumers now seek spaces that inspire, combining retail, café culture and art into one immersive journey.” The luxury sportswear retailer opened its largest ever flagship store, or “clubhouse”, in March 2025 in Cheongdam. There is a Swedish garden on the roof, as well as a VIC-exclusive golf simulator for shoppers to try out their swing in their new gear. “It’s not just about what you buy, but what you feel and connect with,” she says.
The current heavyweight of Seoul’s retailtainment scene, though, is Haus Nowhere, the jaw-dropping new building from Gentle Monster that opened in Seongsu in September 2025. A gigantic animatronic dachshund naps on the ground floor to greet guests, while upstairs, there are robot sculptures with uncannily realistic faces. Another level up is Nudake, which can only be described as afternoon tea for aliens: dishes include lobster tail served with chrysanthemum flowers, and a chocolate gateau in the shape of a miniature dress shoe. It was all edible, but each component is intended for the iPhone rather than the palate.
Multi-brand stores need their own strategies to stand out. When I visit Apgujeong-based boutique Addicted, exclusive items from emerging names like Hodakova, August Barron and Ansdotloevner line the racks. “There’s no point having the same brands everywhere. Some stores forget about that, and brands get overexposed. We try to get exclusives,” says head of buying Heajin Lim.
How does one broker those deals? Lim gives a wry smile: “You have to be the very first to reach out. It’s about knowing the right people and [getting in touch at] the right time.” Lim taps her network of friends in Europe regularly to keep her in the loop, so she knows when to swoop in and get things that other stores won’t have. “People can buy online nowadays, you don’t have to visit the store. To make you come here, there has to be something, right?”
Pop-ups are also an increasingly significant part of the city’s retail landscape, having accelerated post-Covid as brands sought out ways to reconnect with customers, says PAF’s Lee. The pop-up boom has even sparked its own apps (like Pops and Seepop), which chart activations around the city and make them easy to find using a pinned map. During a recent collaboration with District Running, PAF held a guided meditation session; another partnership, with On, invited guests on a hike to the nearby mountain of Bukhansan. “We wanted to give our customers some time to chill away from the hassle of reality,” says Lee.
Sandy Liang recently had an installation at Empty, with the New York designer, known for her feminine Y2K aesthetic, dropping by the store to greet fans and speak to local press. “That kind of activation is really important to make sales,” says Empty’s Chae. According to Chae, the store has doubled its annual sales to KRW 1 billion ($700,000) in the last year, with 20% of purchases made online versus 80% offline.
Place your bets
The pace of trends, pop-ups and store openings in Seoul seems unlikely to let up anytime soon, so opportunity lies in striking up the right partnerships with players that already know the market. For brands planning to open in Seoul in 2026, experts recommend testing the water through a pop-up or within a department store first. “These remain powerful retail channels in Korea thanks to strong loyalty programs and high footfall,” says Bradstreet.
FIT’s Lee agrees. “For brands that want to open up bricks-and-mortar stores in Seoul, location is really important, but many of the hip locations are very expensive to rent these days,” he says. “Without a flagship store, they can adopt a shop-in-shop strategy, where they begin selling in a multi-brand boutique, taking a small location and then introducing it to the local people.”
Kiko Kostadinov did exactly that. Though the London-based brand is yet to open a standalone flagship in the Korean capital, it partnered with Addicted a year ago and now occupies the whole ground floor of the store, making it the first brand consumers see when they walk in. The sales have been solid, too. “He [Kostadinov] has a really big following here, so that’s been really helpful,” says Addicted’s Lim.
Smaller independent labels are also primed to take up more space, and South Korean brands are gaining momentum. At Empty, both K-pop stylists and tourists drop by to pick up pieces from homegrown labels like Coyseio and Glowny. “Foreign people are more interested in Korean brands lately, because the K-entertainment is strong,” says Chae.
It’s a similar story at Shop Amomento, where MS is observing a cultural shift away from big-ticket, status-led luxury brands to consumers building their own identities with their looks. Whereas in the past, famous logos would dictate spend and popularity, people today come to Seoul for discovery, picking up insider-y, lesser-known labels like Gimaguas and Gabriela Coll. “People used to want to buy what a celebrity was wearing, or what their friend was wearing,” he says. “But now, more and more, they’re making their own style.”
Meet the shoppers
Three best friends from Singapore, Rachel, Jessica and Jiamin often make trips to Seoul. “To shop and eat!” says Rachel, 27, who works in financial analytics. Spending the day in Seongsu to shop for perfume, skincare and clothes, they’re drawn to homegrown brands they can’t find back home, such as Margesherwood and Hetras. “Korean brands are gaining a lot of popularity at home in Singapore, so when our friends come to Seoul, they will visit all these boutiques as well,” says Jessica, 27, who works in marketing. “For us, when we shop online, [from] Singapore, we don’t get to really see the pieces or the quality, so it’s nice to come in real life.”
A product designer from California, Grace was in Seongsu picking up some winter clothes. “It’s a little colder here, so I had to buy emergency clothing,” she laughs. Grace visits Seoul a few times a year, for work and to see family. “It’s gotten a lot busier in recent years. There are more stores to look at, a lot more styles and it’s more diversified,” she says. Her favorite places to shop right now are Hannam and Seongsu. “There are lots of pop-ups around here. You can just stroll around and discover something new.”
A flight attendant from Bangkok, Nont was in Seoul on a six-day vacation and had headed straight to Hannam to shop. “In Bangkok, it’s difficult to find good men’s clothes because in Thailand men don’t care about fashion as much as here,” he says. “In Seoul, there’s more to shop for and the quality is better for the price.” Nont is a fan of Korean fragrance brand Non-Fiction and likes Jacquemus, but is more interested in the look than the brand when it comes to clothes. “I’m open to any brand. I’ll just go around Seoul and pick up things I think are good for me.”
A die-hard K-pop fan, liquor store worker Laninja was in town for a Stray Kids concert. The Netherlander has visited Seoul four times in the past two years. “The shops change every time, there’s always a new thing everywhere. It’s new and inventive all the time,” she says. “I love the whole vibe, it’s such a cool place.” Standing outside the gigantic Haus Nowhere, she’d come to shop for the new Sunshine scent from fragrance brand Tamburins, for which Stray Kids member Felix is now the face. “Of course I had to come and get it,” she laughs.
Both working for Ekademe, a menswear store in Utrecht, colleagues Nima (43) and Tycho (32) were in Seoul on a business trip. “We’re here mostly for inspiration, because the retail experience is very good,” says Nima. For some downtime, they’d come to Galleria Department Store in Cheongdam, where Nima had picked up some Maison Francis Kurkdjian perfume for his wife, and was debating buying a Sacai jacket. “There’s a lot of nice shoes and ready-to-wear here, but also perfume and homeware,” he says. “And the streets are actually calm and quiet.”
On holiday from Japan, café owner Ayumi (48), her daughter Kokoro (10) and her friend Kiyomi (59) were taking a break during a day spent shopping in The Hyundai Seoul mall. They’d come to Seoul to try out a few beauty clinic treatments, and were shopping for kidswear for Kokoro. “There are a lot of good cosmetics here. We really like Tamburins too, for their perfume,” says Ayumi. “I used to like Prada and I’ve seen a couple of things, but it seems expensive here,” adds Kiyomi.
Local couple Gyeong Ho (28) and So Hyeon (27) were shopping in The Hyundai Seoul, where they’d come to browse Japanese brands Undercover and Comme des Garçons (as well as pick up some treats for Louie). “You don’t need to spend too much energy when shopping in Seoul, especially when in these big malls. They have everything,” says Gyeong Ho. “Many brands from different countries are now in Seoul,” adds So Hyeon. “We used to go to Tokyo to shop, but now we don’t need to.”
On a lunch break from their shift at the Diesel store in Seongsu, shop staff Minji and Yoon Ju were taking a walk around the neighborhood. “Hannam and Seongsu are the cool places to shop right now,” says Minji. “They have a lot of flagship stores around here, like Margiela opened not too long ago,” adds Yoon Ju. “You can find a lot of items in the stores here that you don’t see anywhere else.”
