🔥The ₩5,000 Olive Young bag every tourist carries is now reselling for double

If you've walked around Myeongdong or Seongsu lately, you've seen it: the big reusable Olive Young shopping bag hanging off half the tourists' arms.

Korean news covered it this week. Olive Young says the tarpaulin bag (타포린백, the heavy waterproof material) launched in January last year and has sold about 2.27 million so far, more than 100,000 a month. It was made for tourist shopping and is only sold at around 150 stores where foreign visitors go, like Myeongdong and Seongsu. Musinsa's reusable bag from this April has passed 270,000 too. Limited editions are trading on secondhand apps for around twice the original price, and the article says people in Korea have started using them as everyday bags as well. I bought one on my last trip because my suitcase was full and the sheet masks needed somewhere to go. Now it's my market bag in Ankara and people actually ask where it's from. A shopping bag becoming a souvenir is funny, but it makes sense. It's cheap, it's useful, and it says "I went to Korea" better than a fridge magnet. Paying double for a limited one is where I get off, though I understand the people who do.