The year, month by month
| Period | What to check |
|---|---|
| January–February | Check department-store New Year offers and the current Korea Grand Sale programme. Confirm Seollal opening hours separately. |
| March–April | Look for Olive Young’s March event and department-store spring sales. Exact dates vary. |
| May | Check individual retailer promotions and public-holiday opening hours. |
| June–August | Look for Olive Young’s June event, department-store summer sales and later clearance offers. |
| September–October | Check Olive Young’s September event, autumn sales and Chuseok closing days. |
| November | Check the announced Korea Sale Festa dates and individual online promotions. |
| December | Look for Olive Young’s December event and any announced winter visitor promotions. |
Olive Young holds four major seasonal sales
Check the event announcement before choosing dates. Olive Young, a Korean health-and-beauty chain, runs four times a year in March, June, September and December for seven days, with more than 1,500 brands taking part; the 2026 spring round ran 1–7 March across about 30,000 lines. Between those, the chain discounts for members on the 25th to 27th of each month, and its overseas website runs its own sale in the same four months. The March 2026 dates do not guarantee that every quarterly sale runs from the first to the seventh.
The one sale built for visitors: Korea Grand Sale (코리아그랜드세일)
Korea Grand Sale has run since 2011, put on by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism with the Korea Tourism Organization, for one reason: winter is the low season for inbound travel and the government would rather it were not. It is the only nationwide discount programme in Korea written for foreign visitors specifically.
The 2026 edition was the largest yet — 17 December 2025 to 22 February 2026, sixty-eight days, up from a customary forty-five, with about 1,750 participating businesses across airlines, accommodation, shopping, food and drink, transport, beauty and convenience services. Alongside the discounts it carries five themed strands — K-Gourmet, K-Exciting, K-Stylish, K-Healing and K-Inspired — plus regional rail packages and welcome-centre giveaways.
If you are considering a winter trip, compare the published visitor offers with your travel costs and plans. The catch is that Seollal usually falls inside it.
The national one: Korea Sale Festa (코리아세일페스타)
Korea Sale Festa began in 2015 as "Korea Black Friday" and was renamed in 2016. Since 2019 an industry committee has run it, with firms choosing their own dates and promotion names inside the window. The 2025 edition ran 29 October to 16 November, nineteen days.
Two things to know. The dates move every year and are set late — the 2026 dates had still not been announced in August 2026, so confirm them before you book around the event. And the discounts are shallower than the name suggests: Korean manufacturers rather than retailers hold the stock, so a shop cannot cut prices the way an American one does in November. A good month for cars, appliances and furniture; an ordinary month for everything a visitor carries home.
Department stores: four blocks a year
The three big chains — Lotte (롯데), Shinsegae (신세계) and Hyundai (현대) — run a regular sale roughly four times a year: early January, late March into early April, late June into mid-July, and October. They discount their mid-market Korean fashion and homeware floors; imported luxury rarely takes part.
From the summer 2026 round: all three opened on 26 June, with Lotte running to 12 July across about 400 brands at up to 40%, Shinsegae to 12 July across about 360 brands at up to 50%, and Hyundai longer, to 20 August, over a narrower set of about 50. The ceilings differ by chain in every round, and "up to 50%" describes the single best line, not the rack.
Food halls may have separate promotions and evening markdowns on selected stock.
Check holiday hours during Seollal and Chuseok
Seollal (설날) and Chuseok (추석) are the opposite of a sale. Demand for fresh food, gift sets and travel spikes, and the government intervenes every year to hold prices down. For Seollal 2026 the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs released 270,000 tonnes of sixteen staple foods, a record, and put ₩91 billion behind discounts on them; apples were still up about 10% year on year, croaker about 21%, mackerel about 11%.
| 2026 | 2027 | |
|---|---|---|
| Seollal (설날) | 16–18 February | 6–9 February (with a substitute day) |
| Chuseok (추석) | 24–26 September | 14–16 September |
Some businesses close or shorten their hours around these holidays, and transport can be busy. Check each branch’s calendar and buy essentials before any confirmed closure.
Rules that hold whatever month you land in
- Check the announced Olive Young sale dates if you plan to buy cosmetics.
- Check winter visitor promotions, including the current Korea Grand Sale programme.
- Check holiday opening hours. Buy anything essential before a confirmed closure.
- A "sale" price is measured against the lowest price of the previous three weeks, not yesterday's ticket — a price that jumped a fortnight ago is not on offer, whatever the sign says.
- Check individual market shops for offers and tourist-refund participation. Prices and promotions vary.
- Check the public-holiday calendar for your travel year. A month without a national holiday can still have store closing days.
