CJ Olive Young is best known as the retailer that helped turn K-beauty discovery into a mainstream shopping habit. Now it is testing whether the same platform can also become a place where global fans discover K-pop content, watch artists and shop for related products.
On October 21, 2026, Olive Young launched GREEN ROOM, its first K-pop-focused live shopping program. The debut episode featured BTOB’s Seo Eunkwang as host and four NMIXX members—Lily, Sullyoon, Bae and Kyujin—following the group’s October 19 comeback with the mini album Strange Muse.
At first glance, a health-and-beauty retailer moving into K-pop live commerce may look like a side project. The numbers suggest something more strategic. Olive Young says sales in its K-pop album category rose 152% year over year from January through September 2026. More importantly, the company is launching this experiment after nearly a decade of rapid revenue growth that has transformed it from a domestic H&B chain into one of Korea’s most influential consumer platforms.
GREEN ROOM is designed to sell more than an album
GREEN ROOM combines a comeback talk show, a live performance and a shopping window in the same broadcast. Viewers can hear artists discuss a new release, interact in real time and buy an album with Olive Young-exclusive benefits without leaving the broadcast.
The first episode included a listening session, a live stage, limited photo benefits, signed-album giveaways and Olive Young gift cards. Album buyers were also offered points equivalent to the shipping fee, while a fan-participation game connected the K-pop segment back to K-beauty products.
That last detail matters. Olive Young is not simply placing albums next to cosmetics. It is testing whether K-pop engagement can translate into K-beauty purchases, and whether existing K-beauty customers can be drawn further into K-culture content.
The 152% album-sales jump is important—but it needs context
Olive Young began selling K-pop albums through its global mall in 2022 and later expanded the category to its Korean online store, physical shops and pop-up formats. By the first nine months of 2026, album sales were 152% higher than in the same period a year earlier.
A growth rate that large does not tell us the absolute size of the album business, and a newer category can grow quickly from a smaller base. So the 152% figure should not be read as proof that albums are suddenly a major share of Olive Young’s total revenue.
What it does show is direction. Customers are already accepting Olive Young as a place to buy more than skincare, makeup and wellness products. GREEN ROOM is an attempt to turn that demand into a repeatable content-and-commerce format rather than treating K-pop as just another retail category.
Olive Young’s annual revenue: a decade of scale-building
The K-pop move looks more significant when viewed against Olive Young’s broader growth. The table below uses rounded annual revenue figures from company disclosures, DART-based reporting and research materials. Older figures can vary slightly by reporting scope, but the long-term direction is clear.
| Year | Annual revenue | What the trend shows |
|---|---|---|
| 2016 | KRW 1.11 trillion | First year above KRW 1 trillion |
| 2017 | KRW 1.43 trillion | Rapid store expansion continues |
| 2018 | KRW 1.66 trillion | Scale builds before omnichannel acceleration |
| 2019 | KRW 1.96 trillion | Nearly KRW 2 trillion in annual sales |
| 2020 | KRW 1.86 trillion | Temporary pandemic-era decline |
| 2021 | KRW 2.11 trillion | Revenue moves above KRW 2 trillion |
| 2022 | KRW 2.78 trillion | Strong post-pandemic acceleration |
| 2023 | KRW 3.86 trillion | Growth broadens across online and offline |
| 2024 | KRW 4.79 trillion | Approaches KRW 5 trillion |
| 2025 | KRW 5.83 trillion | Record annual revenue |
From 2016 to 2025, annual revenue grew by roughly 5.2 times, equivalent to a compound annual growth rate of about 20% over nine years. The only clear interruption in the trend came in 2020, when the pandemic weakened store traffic.
This scale changes what Olive Young can test. A company with a large store network, a high-traffic app, global e-commerce operations and an established live-commerce system does not need K-pop albums to become a core business. It can use K-pop to increase shopping frequency, attract new users and give fans more reasons to return between regular beauty purchases.
Why K-pop fits Olive Young better now than it did ten years ago
Ten years ago, Olive Young’s main advantage was distribution: more stores, more brands and a convenient place to compare beauty products. Today the company has something broader—a network that combines physical retail, mobile shopping, quick delivery, global e-commerce and content.
K-pop fits that system for three reasons.
1. K-pop fans are already highly motivated buyers
Album purchasing is increasingly tied to exclusive benefits, limited versions, pop-ups and time-sensitive events. GREEN ROOM builds those mechanics directly into a live broadcast. The content creates urgency; the exclusive benefit gives viewers a reason to buy through Olive Young rather than somewhere else.
2. Beauty and fandom can share the same customer journey
The program deliberately mixes album rewards with K-beauty giveaways. A fan may tune in for NMIXX and end up browsing beauty products; an existing Olive Young customer may discover a comeback through the same platform. That overlap is exactly what makes the format interesting for the retailer.
3. Olive Young can connect online fandom with physical retail
Specialist album sellers are strong at fandom commerce, but Olive Young has a different advantage: thousands of daily consumer touchpoints across stores, its app, online shopping and locations popular with international visitors. That gives it the option to connect future broadcasts with pop-ups, store pickup, local fan events or beauty collaborations.
Japan is not a minor detail in the first test
GREEN ROOM was not limited to Olive Young’s Korean live-commerce channel. The program also aired on the Olive Young TV YouTube channel and on O.Y LIVE through the company’s Japanese global-mall service, with real-time translation for viewers in Japan.
That makes the pilot more than a domestic shopping broadcast. Olive Young is testing whether one K-pop program can serve multiple markets at the same time while keeping purchasing inside its own commerce ecosystem.
If that model works, Olive Young could localize the format market by market. Japan can serve as the first proving ground, while other regions could eventually receive their own language support, promotions or artist-specific campaigns.
Why NMIXX is a useful first guest
NMIXX appeared on GREEN ROOM just after a comeback, giving the format a clear reason to exist. The show is not trying to recreate a general variety program. It is positioned around the period when fan interest, album purchases and performance content naturally peak.
That timing could become one of GREEN ROOM’s strongest advantages. If future episodes continue to land around comeback periods, the show can become part of an album-release campaign rather than just another promotional appearance.
The bigger shift: retailers are becoming media channels
The interesting part of GREEN ROOM is not that Olive Young can sell a K-pop album. Many retailers can do that. The more important question is whether a retailer can become a place fans intentionally visit for entertainment.
Olive Young has been building toward that model for years. O.Y LIVE launched in 2019, the company later opened a dedicated live-commerce studio, and partner brands were given tools to run their own broadcasts. GREEN ROOM extends that infrastructure into entertainment.
In other words, Olive Young is trying to move one step earlier in the purchase journey. Instead of waiting for a customer to search for an album, it wants to create the content that leads to the purchase.
What could limit the strategy
There are still reasons to be cautious. The 152% growth figure does not tell us how profitable album sales are, or how much of the increase reflects a relatively small starting base. Live-commerce audiences can also surge for a popular guest without becoming regular viewers.
Olive Young will also be competing for fan attention with platforms and retailers whose businesses are built specifically around artists, albums, memberships and collectibles. Its advantage is reach and cross-category shopping; its challenge is proving that fans will see Olive Young as a K-pop destination rather than simply another place to buy a release.
What to watch in 2027
Olive Young plans two pilot GREEN ROOM broadcasts in 2026 before moving to regular programming and seasonal editions in 2027. The next stage will show whether GREEN ROOM remains a promotional experiment or develops into a meaningful new line of business.
- Artist lineup: whether the show expands across agencies, generations and fandom sizes.
- Repeat viewing: whether audiences return when their favorite artist is not the guest.
- Cross-category baskets: whether album buyers also purchase beauty products during or after broadcasts.
- Offline integration: whether GREEN ROOM connects with stores, pop-ups or pickup benefits.
- Global localization: whether Japan becomes a template for additional overseas markets.
Why this matters for K-pop retail
GREEN ROOM is worth watching because it shows how K-pop commerce is moving beyond traditional music retailers and dedicated fan platforms. Olive Young already has the stores, digital traffic and purchasing infrastructure. The missing piece is whether it can turn those assets into a place fans choose to visit for K-pop itself.
The 152% increase in album sales is the immediate trigger, but the longer story is Olive Young’s growth from roughly KRW 1.1 trillion in annual revenue in 2016 to KRW 5.8 trillion in 2025. At that scale, K-pop does not have to become the company’s biggest category to matter. It can work as a bridge between shopping, entertainment, tourism and the wider K-culture economy.
If GREEN ROOM becomes a regular stop on comeback schedules, the important change will not simply be that Olive Young sells more albums. It will be that one of Korea’s largest beauty retailers has become part of the infrastructure through which fans experience and purchase K-pop.
Sources & further reading
- CJ Olive Young — GREEN ROOM launch announcement
- CJ Olive Young 2025 annual results, based on CJ’s regulatory filing
- Historical CJ Olive Young revenue data, DART-based research reference