How did Olive Young improve the shopping experience for foreign customers through Perso Interactive?

About

While global interest in K-beauty is rising and the number of foreign tourists visiting Korea is increasing rapidly, physical stores have continued to face difficulties in providing sufficient product exploration and customized consultations due to language barriers. To solve this, CJ Olive Young and ESTsoft collaborated to present the 'AI Shopping Assistant', a retail-specialized solution based on the real-time interactive AI Avatar service, Perso Interactive.

It was first introduced in three branches with a high frequency of foreign customer visits (Dongdaemun History & Culture Park Branch, Apgujeong Central Branch, and Ewha Womans University Central Branch). By combining support for 8 languages, tens of thousands of Olive Young's product data, and ESTsoft's AI recommendation engine 'AURA', it realized a hyper-personalized shopping experience without language barriers. Through this, foreign customers are able to conveniently search for products and receive consultations in their mother tongue, and the station goes beyond improving the shopping experience to support physical store operation efficiency by collecting and analyzing on-site data.

Background

K-beauty stores are no longer just spaces where products are displayed, but are transforming into spaces of experience where customers directly explore, compare, and discover products that fit them. However, when responding to foreign customers, it was difficult to provide sufficient consultation and customized recommendations due to language barriers and limited on-site staff, which led to the problem of purchase abandonment.

These difficulties were already clearly visible on-site. According to a survey of Olive Young store employees, 69.4% experienced language barriers while responding to foreign customers, and 54.8% answered that translation was necessary.

Particularly in the K-beauty category with diverse product groups and complex selection criteria, a new way of guidance was needed to respond to customer inquiries in real-time and lead to personalized recommendations. Perso Interactive responded to these needs with an interactive shopping experience that connects multilingual dialogue, product exploration, and personalized recommendations in a single flow.

Solution

The Perso Interactive-based AI Shopping Assistant was introduced to 3 major Olive Young stores with a high proportion of foreign customer visits to implement a customer response experience optimized for the K-beauty shopping environment. The AI Avatar installed in the station responds to customers in real-time, and it was designed targeting foreign customers in their 20s and 30s who are highly interested in K-beauty.

The core is multilingual response based on 8 languages (including English, Japanese, and Chinese). Through a customized UI for each language and natural AI Avatar responses, it immediately responds in the respective language no matter which language the customer speaks, and goes beyond simple translation to provide interactive recommendations that understand the customer's intent and context. Even for natural requests like "Is there a moisturizing cream suitable for oily skin?", it suggests products appropriate for the situation.

To this, ESTsoft's AI recommendation engine 'AURA' and tens of thousands of Olive Young's product data were combined to realize hyper-personalized product recommendations reflecting skin concerns, preferred texture, purpose of use, etc. In addition, barcode scanning-based multilingual product information guidance allows customers to immediately check ingredients and efficacy, and features for physical store operation efficiency, such as automations for repetitive inquiries like tax refunds and store usage questions, and an operations dashboard based on customer behavior data analysis, are also provided.

Results

Since the introduction of the service, foreign customers have been able to receive sufficient product consultations in their mother tongue, increasing satisfaction with the purchasing decision-making process. As the AI understood the customer's intent and context and widely suggested products suitable for the situation, a wider variety of products than before was naturally exposed, which also had a positive impact on increasing the average transaction value.

The search process became simpler through quick product information checks via barcode scanning, and the operations dashboard visualizes staying time, usage rates by language, major questions, and recommendation utilization to enable data-driven store operations.

Above all, this project is a representative case showing that Perso Interactive is expanding into 'Physical AI' in the retail field by integrating real-time AI Avatar with an AI recommendation engine and a data-based management system. ESTsoft and Olive Young plan to continue upgrading the service and provide a higher level of K-beauty shopping experience to customers around the world.

Recommended for

This case will be a great reference for managers in charge of beauty and retail stores with a high proportion of foreign tourists, retail brand managers who want to improve the quality of multilingual customer responses and increase purchase conversion rates, and offline store managers who want to manage product recommendations and store operation data in an integrated way. Particularly in categories like K-beauty, which have many types of products and diverse customer needs, it can be effectively utilized when trying to reduce language barriers while increasing both the purchasing experience and the conversion rate.

Related Article: ESTsoft Launches 'AI Shopping Assistant' with CJ Olive Young... K-Beauty Retail On-site Innovation with Hyper-personalized and Multilingual Services Utilizing Real-time Interactive AI Avatar

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Can it be applied to other retail stores besides Olive Young?

A. Yes. It can be linked with other retail brands' product data to implement the same type of AI retail concierge service. Optimization plans suitable for the brand and store environment will be designed together through prior consultation.

Q. Is it possible to support additional languages besides the 8 languages?

A. Yes. The scope of supported languages can be expanded through prior consultation depending on the nationality composition and needs of the store visitors.

Q. What kind of data can be checked on the operations dashboard?

A. It analyzes customer dialogue logs, major inquiry types, and product search behavior data to provide insights that can be utilized for optimizing store operations. Specific dashboard features will be designed together to fit the operational purposes.