CJ Olive Young announced on Wednesday that it’s rolling out artificial intelligence (AI)-powered in-store services to enhance the shopping experience for international customers, catering to the surging global demand for K-beauty.
Olive Young has become a go-to shopping destination for foreign visitors, with impressive repeat customer rates not just in the Seoul metro area, but in regional stores too. During this year’s back-to-back Olive Young Sale events, the number of returning international shoppers skyrocketed, increasing elevenfold compared to three years ago.
The beauty retailer is prioritizing its AI Shopping Assistant in multi-level stores that see high foot traffic from international customers and have a greater need for shopping guidance. This innovative service allows customers to chat in real-time with an AI avatar via kiosks, enabling a self-guided shopping experience without staff assistance.
One of the major perks? The AI can dish out product details, check stock availability, help with in-store navigation, and even recommend products tailored to individual skin types and preferences – all in eight different languages. This means you can explore products without any language barriers holding you back. For quick queries about payment options or tax refunds, customers can simply tap the touchscreen.
Olive Young has also implemented a data-driven dashboard that gives a snapshot of customer dwell times and frequently asked questions. This allows the store to fine-tune its operations based on customer needs and behaviors.
While the AI Shopping Assistant is perfect for self-service, Olive Young’s got you covered for one-on-one consultations too, thanks to their AI Interpretation Service. This next-gen service, which builds on the portable translator introduced in 2024, uses AI to boost interpretation accuracy and user-friendliness. It’s being rolled out gradually, starting with stores that have a high proportion of international customers, and now supports a whopping 38 languages.
Want to chat with a staff member? Just scan the QR code they show you to join a real-time chat, or use the in-store tablets to have a voice conversation. This means you can explain your skin concerns in your native language and get detailed info on product ingredients and usage straight from the experts.
An Olive Young spokesperson shared that they’re committed to continually improving the AI-based store services to make shopping a breeze for the global customers, and it plans to expand these services nationwide. The goal is to cement the position as the ultimate global K-beauty hub, where beauty enthusiasts from around the world can get up close and personal with K-beauty, without any language barriers standing in their way.
