South Korea's online shopping tops 25 trillion won in May as cosmetics sales surge

South Korea's online shopping transactions surpassed 25 trillion won ($16.1 billion) in May, extending a double-digit growth streak. Cosmetics, food services and groceries led the gains, while travel and transport services bucked the trend with a decline.

The Ministry of Statistics released its online shopping trend report for May 2026 on Tuesday, showing total transactions reached 25.01 trillion won, up 10.3 percent, or 2.33 trillion won, from the same month last year. Compared with the previous month, transactions rose 4.4 percent.

By product category, food and grocery transactions totaled 3.55 trillion won, up 14.0 percent year on year. Food service transactions rose 10.2 percent to 3.84 trillion won, while cosmetics surged 36.6 percent to 1.57 trillion won, making it the fastest-growing category. Travel and transport services, by contrast, fell 3.4 percent to 2.76 trillion won.

Food services accounted for the largest share of total transactions at 15.4 percent, followed by food and groceries at 14.2 percent, travel and transport services at 11.0 percent, clothing at 7.8 percent and lifestyle products at 7.3 percent.

Mobile shopping transactions reached 19.29 trillion won, up 9.7 percent from a year earlier. However, mobile's share of total online shopping edged down to 77.1 percent from 77.6 percent in the same month last year, a drop of 0.5 percentage points. Among categories, food services recorded the highest mobile share at 99.0 percent, followed by e-coupon services at 92.3 percent and children's and infant products at 84.7 percent.

By retail format, general shopping mall transactions grew 7.8 percent to 13.38 trillion won, while specialty mall transactions rose 13.3 percent to 11.63 trillion won — a notably faster pace. By operating type, online-only retailers posted transactions of 19.31 trillion won, up 10.1 percent, while retailers operating both online and offline channels recorded 5.71 trillion won, up 11.1 percent.

Online shopping product transactions, excluding services, totaled 17.36 trillion won. Online product sales accounted for 29.8 percent of total retail sales, up 1.8 percentage points from 28.0 percent in the same month last year, continuing a trend in which online channels represent roughly one-third of all retail spending.