5 Best Places to Shop in Seoul, South Korea

This eight-story mega mall is brimming with more than 500 stores selling the latest fashion trends. An estimated three million foreign visitors a year peruse the mix of luxury boutiques, emerging designers, sportswear, and fast fashion encompassed in this late-night shoppers’ paradise. If you’re looking for the hottest trends in K-style, this is the place to break out your credit card.

This basement mall connected to Gangnam Station features tiny shops and kiosks selling the latest in fashion trends. It's a great place to browse if you have a bit of extra time on your hands.

Mainly geared toward teenagers and early-20-somethings, this mall is overflowing with trendy frocks, candy-colored shoes, glittering baubles, and numerous other frilly accouterments. Everywhere you look you’ll see signs screaming “Sale!” and this mall is indeed known as one of the best places in Dongdaemun to score a bargain. As the name cheekily suggests, the mall is open from am to pm and back again into the wee hours of the morning. Note: most shops carry only women’s clothing, and there are limited options for men. 

This polished mall is set in the three basement levels of the International Finance Center and is connected to the subway station via an underground walkway—a real godsend if you’re visiting Seoul during a frigid winter or the dog days of summer. While the mall features a pretty standard lineup of coffee shops, fast food eateries, and cosmetic and fashion brands, it’s also known for hosting Hallyu events such as K-Drama movie premiers in its 4D theater.

Opened in 2014, this mammoth shopping center includes luxury brand shops, a Lotte Mart, a Hi-Mart electronics store, scores of restaurants, a spa, a movie theater, an aquarium, and a concert hall. It's shiny, impressive, and immaculate, and it's worth a visit just to stroll around and bathe in the splendor of hypercommercialism in action.