[MBC News Report] From New York’s SoHo to the Upper East Side, ‘ChoiceDx’ Stands at the Center of K-Beauty’s Offline Innovation

ChoiceDx
2 days ago
6 min read

Updated: 1 day ago

K-Beauty’s expansion in the U.S. market is entering a new phase.

Until recently, the growth of K-Beauty in the United States was often discussed mainly in connection with social media, digital content, and online channels such as Amazon. Now, the stage of that growth is expanding into offline retail. Consumers are increasingly discovering K-Beauty online and then experiencing, comparing, and consulting about products in physical stores.

MBC News Today Official YouTube · September 7, 2026 (https://www.youtube.com/live/aSfVAiZuqfk)

A recent MBC News report highlighted this change on the ground in New York. From K-Beauty pop-up stores in SoHo to changes across major U.S. retail channels including Sephora, Ulta Beauty, and Target, the report showed how K-Beauty is moving beyond online trends and becoming part of the everyday shopping environment of American consumers.

One scene in particular stood out.

At a K-Beauty location on New York’s Upper East Side, a first-time customer experienced having his skin type checked before looking at products, and expressed satisfaction with the thoughtful, skin-first approach.

The skin analysis solution used in this customer experience was ChoiceDx by ChoiceTech Korea.

The New York location is meaningful, as is the fact that the scene appeared in a major news report. But what ChoiceDx pays even closer attention to is something more fundamental:

the starting point of the customer experience is changing.

As Product Choice Grows, Customers Need a Clearer Basis for Choosing

The global growth of K-Beauty has created more choices for consumers.

New brands continue to enter the market, categories are becoming more specialized, and even a single skin concern may be addressed by numerous products with different ingredients and functions.

For brands and retailers, this creates a significant opportunity.

For consumers, however, it creates another fundamental question:

“Out of all these products, which one is right for me?”

This question can be even more relevant for international customers who are relatively new to K-Beauty. There may be plenty of product information available, but it can still be difficult to know where to begin based on their own skin.

This is where physical retail can play a different role from online channels.

What matters is no longer only how many products a store carries, but how effectively it helps customers find a meaningful basis for choosing among them.

ChoiceDx starts that basis with the customer’s own skin.

ChoiceDx is not a tool for showing customers more products. It is a skin analysis solution designed to help them understand where to begin among an increasingly wide range of choices.

Before the Product, Understand the Skin

Beauty consultations often begin with products or with the customer’s own description of a skin concern.

“What kind of product are you looking for?”

“What are your main skin concerns?”

These are familiar questions. But when customers find it difficult to describe their skin accurately, the starting point of the consultation itself can become unclear.

Skin analysis changes that starting point.

Customers can first review information about their skin, while staff can look at the same results and begin a more specific conversation. From there, customers can explore relevant care directions and product categories with greater context.

ChoiceDx proposes a retail experience built around a simple flow:

Analyze → Understand → Consult → Discover

Analyze the skin, understand the results, create a shared basis for consultation, and then move into product discovery.

The important point is not the analysis itself.

It is what customers understand afterward, what conversations begin, and what choices become easier to make.

The process above represents a retail-use model proposed by ChoiceDx. In the MBC News report, a first-time customer on the Upper East Side was shown expressing satisfaction with an experience that began by checking his skin type.

A Structural Shift in U.S. K-Beauty

From Online Growth to Offline Retail

What makes the MBC report particularly meaningful is that it did not focus only on a single New York location.

It also covered the expansion of K-Beauty across major U.S. retailers including Sephora, Ulta Beauty, and Target, highlighting a structural shift from Amazon-centered online growth toward broader penetration of physical retail.

This shift presents a new challenge not only for K-Beauty brands, but also for retailers.

Consumers can already access an enormous amount of product information online.

They can read product descriptions, compare reviews, watch videos, check prices, and research ingredients.

So why should they visit a physical store?

The answer lies in experience.

Measuring their skin in person, reviewing the results, receiving consultation on the spot, and comparing products within the same environment can offer a form of value that online browsing cannot fully replace.

This is where the role of ChoiceDx becomes clearer.

Rather than leaving Skin Analysis as a standalone digital device inside the store, it can be used as the first meaningful point of connection between the customer and the products.

K-Beauty Growth Is Also Visible in the Numbers

The expansion of K-Beauty into offline retail is not simply a matter of market sentiment or a temporary trend.

Recent export performance and sales data from major U.S. retailers point in the same direction.

According to the MBC News report, Korean cosmetics exports increased 31.2% compared with the previous year, showing that the foundation of K-Beauty in overseas markets continues to expand.

The momentum is also visible in U.S. retail.

In its fiscal 2026 second-quarter earnings discussion, Ulta Beauty reported robust double-digit year-over-year growth in K-Beauty sales.

During the same quarter, Ulta Beauty added five new K-Beauty brands, while nearly half of its K-Beauty sales came from exclusive brands or exclusive products.

These figures suggest that K-Beauty is moving beyond being simply another emerging category added to store shelves. Major U.S. retailers are continuing to expand their assortments while viewing K-Beauty as a category with continued growth potential.

At the same time, this growth creates another challenge.

As the number of brands and SKUs increases, helping customers navigate those choices becomes just as important as expanding the assortment itself.

The question begins to shift from:

“How do we sell more products?”

to:

“How do we help customers find their own basis for choosing among more options?”

This is also why ChoiceDx sees Skin Analysis as a starting point in the retail customer journey.

As product choice expands, customers do not necessarily need more product information.

They need a basis for beginning a choice that is relevant to them.

The Value of a Skin Analyzer Becomes Clear After the Scan

When evaluating a skin analysis solution, camera specifications, analysis parameters, and AI technology are naturally important.

But in an actual retail environment, technical specifications alone are not enough to determine the value of implementation.

More practical questions need to be considered.

Will customers naturally begin the analysis?

Can they understand the results?

Can staff use those results in an actual consultation?

Can customers who speak different languages complete the experience?

Can the analysis naturally lead into product discovery?

The value of a retail Skin Analyzer therefore depends not only on how much it can measure, but also on what happens after the measurement.

Good technology needs to work within real store operations.

From Korea to New York

ChoiceDx Expands Into Real-World Retail Environments

ChoiceDx has been used across a variety of beauty retail environments in Korea.

Now, in a K-Beauty retail setting in New York, it is also being used as part of an experience that helps local customers understand their own skin first.

For ChoiceTech Korea, what matters is not simply how many devices have been shipped overseas.

The more important questions are what actually happens inside the store.

Do customers use skin analysis?

Do the results become a starting point for consultation?

Does that consultation help make product selection clearer?

And can that experience develop from a single store into a repeatable retail model?

As K-Beauty moves deeper into U.S. offline retail, competition may no longer be determined by product assortment alone.

Even when retailers offer similar products, differences can emerge from where customers begin their experience, what they understand, what guidance they receive, and how they discover products that are relevant to them.

ChoiceDx starts that journey with the customer’s own skin.

Before the Product, Understand the Skin.

K-Beauty is moving offline.ChoiceDx helps make the in-store experience personal.

For Global Retailers & Beauty Brands

ChoiceDx can be considered for a range of beauty retail environments, including:

K-Beauty Retail Stores
Beauty Select Shops
Brand Flagship Stores
Department Stores
Pharmacies & Derma Beauty Stores
Pop-up Stores
Beauty Consultation Spaces
Exhibitions & Experience Zones

One Store. Real Customers. Real Feedback.

Before deciding on a large-scale rollout, start by observing real customer responses in a single store.

Review customer engagement, analysis completion, consultation flow, and product discovery in an actual retail environment before deciding on the next stage of expansion.