Olive Young holds annual beauty convention, highlights small businesses

Visitors line up to play games and win gifts at the Olive Young Awards & Festa held at Dongdaemun Design Plaza in central Seoul on Wednesday. [OLIVE YOUNG]

Olive Young held its annual beauty convention on Wednesday, inviting various small businesses to showcase their products.

A total of 97 brands participated in the Olive Young Awards & Festa, which runs through Sunday at the Dongdaemun Design Plaza in central Seoul. Some 20,000 people purchased tickets for the event, at which they can visit booths to check out various products and get gifts and product samples.

“It's our first year attending the event, and we’re really enjoying it since we’re getting so many samples and products,” said Choi Su-yeon, visiting the convention with her friend. “I even won a game at the Espoir booth and got a free cushion foundation, and I’m really excited to try it out later.”

At the convention, Olive Young showcased products that ranked first, second and third in terms of sales in each product category throughout the year, with many small businesses taking the top spots. Of the 128 products that placed in the top three spots for each category, 82 percent were from small businesses.

One such small business is Foodology, with its diet tablets coming first in the dietary supplement category. The brand was founded in 2017 and started selling on Olive Young in March.

“We were able to grow due to Olive Young noticing our potential and partnering with us to sell our products, allowing us to reach out to more customers,” said Park Jeong-ha, CEO of Foodology. “The Olive Young Awards & Festa is a chance for us to listen to what the customers like and want, which we can apply to grow as a company.”

Rom&nd, a company founded in 2016, took the first and third spot in the lip product category with its lip tints. The company’s sales at Olive Young grew 108 percent on year between January and November.

BY LEE TAE-HEE [lee.taehee2@joongang.co.kr]