Myeongdong holds nine Olive Young branches, and they are not interchangeable. Central Myeongdong Town, at 27 Myeongdong 8-gil, carries the largest assortment in the entire chain and is the branch to use when you want to compare products rather than collect a known list. Myeongdong Global Town, at 53 Myeongdong-gil, is the one built around foreign shoppers — a lounge, language help, a duty-free desk and tax refunds handled at the counters on both of its floors. Timewalk, at 78 Namdaemun-ro, is the only branch open before 10:00 on weekdays. Myeongdong Station, at 115 Toegye-ro, sits beside the subway exit and works as the last stop on the way out of the district.
The other five occupy one or two floors each on the interior lanes, against the four levels of Central Myeongdong Town. Every branch except Timewalk trades 10:00 to 22:30, seven days a week including public holidays, so opening hours separate exactly one of the nine.
Two things are not decided by branch size at all. The immediate in-store tax refund runs through participating Olive Young stores rather than the whole network, and it is processed by a cashier who scans your passport at the till. And four weeks of the year, the chain-wide Ol-Young Sale moves prices further than any difference between one branch and another.
Central Myeongdong Town Carries the Chain’s Largest Assortment
Central Myeongdong Town opened at the end of March 2026 across B1 to 3F of the M Plaza building, covering roughly 3,140 square metres. It is the second-largest Olive Young in Korea after N Seongsu, and it holds about 15,000 products from more than 1,000 brands — the widest range of any store in the chain.
The layout is unusual. Much of the ground level is given over to open circulation rather than shelving, with two entrances and a short escalator running up, so the selling floors sit above street level: makeup on one, skincare and wellness on the other. Twenty-two staffed checkout counters were installed.
Several sections exist here that a two-floor branch has no space for. A “Mask Library” holds more than 800 sheet mask products arranged by skin type and function, roughly ten times the mask display of an average store. The sunscreen section puts out three testers per product rather than one. Separate zones cover beauty devices and dermocosmetics. An upper-floor K-food area stocks jellies, chips, chocolate, drinks and refrigerated banana milk, aimed at visitors buying edible souvenirs alongside cosmetics.
Staff wear national flag badges showing which languages they speak.
Global Town on Myeongdong-gil Is Built Around Foreign Shoppers
Myeongdong Global Town predates the newer store and was remodelled in 2023. It records the highest sales of any Olive Young branch in Korea, and roughly 95% of that revenue came from foreign customers in the last full year.
The split across its two floors is clean. Skincare, sun care, blemish care, sheet masks and dermocosmetics sit on the first floor, with a checkout counter that processes tax refunds. The second floor carries makeup and a luxury section, tools and brushes, nail products, hair care, men’s care, fragrance, bath and body, health items, and food and drink — plus a second checkout, so a basket assembled upstairs is paid for upstairs.
The service layer is concentrated on that second floor: a Global Service Lounge with free Wi-Fi, seating and membership gifts, a duty-free desk, and a counter issuing new-member gifts. Foreign-language assistance, WeChat Pay and Alipay acceptance, gift wrapping and gift cards are all handled at this branch. If somewhere to sit and repack a suitcase is what the visit needs, this is the store that has it.
Two practical details. Global Town has no customer toilets, and visitors are pointed to the facilities inside the subway stations. And the store sits between two lines: Myeongdong Station exit 8 on Line 4, or Euljiro 1-ga Station exit 5 on Line 2.
Timewalk Opens at 9:30, and the Station Branch Catches You on the Way Out
The seven smaller branches differ from each other in two ways that change a decision: when they open, and where they stand relative to the subway.
Timewalk occupies units 108–109 on the ground floor of 78 Namdaemun-ro, on a single level. It opens at 9:30 on weekdays — 10:00 at weekends and on public holidays — which makes it the only option in Myeongdong for anyone with a morning train, an early tour pickup, or a checkout time that lands before the district wakes up. It is also the closest branch to Euljiro 1-ga Station.
Myeongdong Station is a single floor at 115 Toegye-ro, immediately beside exit 6. It is the branch you pass with a suitcase already in hand, which is its own kind of usefulness.
Myeongdong 2nd Street runs across three floors at 68-1 Namdaemun-ro, on the main road opposite Lotte Young Plaza, and is the largest of the seven. The branch simply named Myeongdong, at 14 Myeongdong 8-gil, opened in August 2023 across two floors joined by an escalator and stands about a minute from Central Myeongdong Town. Myeongdong Central at 18 Myeongdong 8-na-gil and Myeongdong Street at 9 Myeongdong 8-na-gil are two-floor shops on the interior lanes, and a further branch trades on Myeongdong-daero.
None of the seven has anything on the scale of the Mask Library. They suit a restock of something already decided, or a purchase squeezed into a gap in the day.
The Ol-Young Sale Weeks Move Prices Further Than Any Branch Choice
Olive Young runs its chain-wide Ol-Young Sale four times a year, in March, June, September and December, and each edition lasts one week. The 2026 spring sale ran from 1 to 7 March and discounted roughly 30,000 beauty and wellness products, in store and online.
The mechanics reward planning. Limited-time coupon packs worth up to ₩40,000 are issued for use in the physical stores, online shoppers get separate coupons released three times a day on a first-come basis, and individual brands add one-day “Today’s Special” discounts on top. During the sale weeks, Olive Young also runs promotions aimed specifically at foreign shoppers in the tourist districts, Myeongdong among them.
The consequence for a short trip is simple arithmetic. A week that overlaps a sale changes the total more than choosing the largest branch over the nearest one. A week that does not means the branch decision is back to range, services and opening hours.
Dates are announced by Olive Young rather than fixed to the same calendar days each year, and at the time of writing the September 2026 edition has not been published. Anyone timing a trip around it should check the current announcement rather than assuming the spring pattern repeats.
The Instant Refund Is Decided at the Counter, Not by the Size of the Branch
Korean VAT is 10%, and after the refund operator’s processing fee the amount actually returned generally lands between 4% and 7% of the purchase price. At Olive Young the deduction happens at the register rather than at a separate desk, and the cashier scans a passport to do it.
Three numbers govern it. The minimum is ₩15,000 in a single transaction. The immediate refund applies to single purchases below ₩1,000,000. The cumulative ceiling across the whole visit is ₩5,000,000. Guides quoting a ₩30,000 or ₩50,000 minimum, or a per-purchase cap in the hundreds of thousands, describe an earlier version of the scheme.
The passport has to be presented at the point of payment, not produced afterwards with the receipt. At Global Town the refund is handled at both the first and second floor counters; at other branches, the sign at the till or a question before paying settles whether that store participates.
Above those ceilings, or where a branch does not process refunds in store, the purchase becomes a standard airport claim: keep the receipts and the tax-free slip, present the goods and paperwork at the customs declaration counter before check-in, then collect the refund after passport control. Eligibility runs to foreign visitors who have been in Korea for under six months, and to overseas Koreans who have stayed under three months and lived abroad for more than two years, with goods exported within three months of purchase.
Splitting a large haul across several small branches to stay under the per-transaction ceiling is unnecessary — ₩1,000,000 is well above an ordinary beauty purchase. Splitting it across branches that do not all process refunds costs the refund on whichever receipts were rung up at the wrong counter.
Sources
Olive Young Myeongdong Global Town (official) — address, floor-by-floor contents, opening hours, in-store tax refund at both checkouts, Global Service Lounge, duty-free desk, payment and service list, station exits
https://myeongdongtown.oliveyoung.com/en/
Visit Seoul, Seoul Tourism Organization (official) — refund minimum, immediate refund per-transaction and trip limits, eligibility conditions, airport customs and refund procedure
https://english.visitseoul.net/taxrefund
The Korea Herald — Ol-Young Sale frequency and duration, 2026 spring sale dates and product count, coupon values, brand day discounts, foreign-shopper promotions; brand and product counts at Central Myeongdong Town, Mask Library, beauty device and dermocosmetic zones, language badges, foreign customer share at Global Town
https://www.koreaherald.com/article/10683750
Korea JoongAng Daily — Central Myeongdong Town opening date, floor area, ground-floor circulation layout, checkout count, sunscreen sampling, K-food section, ranking against N Seongsu
https://www.koreajoongangdaily.com/business/new-olive-young-central-myeongdong-town-aims-for-optimal-shopping-experience/12579246
Korea To Do — branch addresses, floor counts and opening hours across the nine Myeongdong stores, including Timewalk’s earlier weekday opening
https://www.koreatodo.com/olive-young-myeongdong-seoul
