A New Challenger Is Taking on Sephora in Its Biggest Market

The line that spilled out of Washington’s Bellevue Square mall on Jan. 17 wasn’t for a celebrity appearance, a limited-edition product or even a free one.

The hundreds-strong, hours-long line was there for the Pacific Northwest’s first Sukoshi store, a Canadian retailer of Asian beauty products that has been rapidly expanding in the US since the start of 2025.

“People were there just to shop,” said Linda Dang, founder and chief executive, adding that it had been one of the Sukoshi’s strongest openings yet, as US consumers clamour for Asian beauty products they can’t get anywhere else.

Sukoshi, which carries a mix of imported Korean, Japanese and Chinese beauty products, is gearing up to expand more vigorously in the US. In 2025, it opened stores in New York City, Atlanta and Miami, with forthcoming doors in Illinois, California, Texas and New Jersey, in addition to its fleet of 12 stores across Canada.

Sukoshi’s signature mint and pastel pink stores are well lit, spacious, and stocked with hot brands like Purito, Tirtir, Judydoll and Medicube. Skincare is merchandised by product type: a wall of toner pads, a display of sheet masks and another with sunscreens; gondolas of cosmetics dot the centre of the store, surrounded by dedicated hair and body care sections. At the back, customers can also pick up accessories and toys, like purse charms, earrings or a phone stand with the Dutch cartoon character Miffy.

It may sound like a niche premise, but the growing US demand for Asian beauty brands, especially from South Korea, is making stores like Sukoshi and soon-to-launch Olive Young into competitive threats for other retailers.

“10 years ago, retail like this didn’t really work. Now, it’s supported by a cultural wave,” said Allison Collins, co-founder of insights firm The Consumer Collective, referencing the boom in K-Beauty as well as Korean music, films and TV shows.

The US’s renewed obsession with K-Beauty, which began to surge again in 2021, has made brands like Beauty of Joseon, CosRx and Laneige into household names, and left Western retailers like Sephora and Ulta Beauty clamouring to ink distribution deals with top brands. The former just announced a tie-up with Olive Young, South Korea’s best-known beauty retailer while Ulta Beauty moved fast to secure brands like Medicube and Tirtir.

It’s a crowded marketplace, but Dang says Sukoshi has a point of difference by not focussing solely on K-Beauty. Its range also includes buzzy Chinese and Japanese brands like Girlcult and Red Chamber, and Dang said it would be adding more brands from the likes of Thailand. There’s also Korean brands like Sungboon Editor, S.Nature and Skin1004 which are newer to the US market and give the store more indie clout.

Taking on the likes of Ulta Beauty and Sephora will be no mean feat, but Dang believes a rising tide will lift all boats. Even Sephora’s partnership with Olive Young, she said, is a benefit for Sukoshi.

“It’s more eyeballs, a lot more visibility to the industry, and more marketing that’s put behind [Asian beauty],” Dang said.

Canadian Roots, Global Appeal

Sukoshi was never meant to be a beauty store. Dang, a former restaurateur, opened its first location in Toronto in 2008 as a general Asian lifestyle retailer, also selling food and tchotchkes.

Dang said its original beauty selection was the size of “two Ikea folding tables.” However, after an offer to take over a much larger 3,000 square-foot space that once housed a Lululemon, Dang said the team pivoted to focus on beauty.

Once it had opened its fifth store in Canada, the company took an investment 2023 from its longstanding Korean beauty distributor, Silicon2. (Dang declined to specify the size of its stake but said it was less than 25 percent.) Since then, Sukoshi has doubled its store count each year — in 2026, it hopes to open 40 new locations, both in malls and in freestanding stores. Its New York location, on the city’s plush Upper East Side, is near a Sephora and Ulta Beauty, though it prefers to settle near fashion retailers like Zara, Aritzia and Lululemon. Stores are usually profitable within a year, Dang said.

The target customer profile is young, starting at 15, but its demographic has expanded upwards with its store footprint. “Asian beauty is mass now, not a niche thing,” she added.

The global success of Korean beauty brands like Laneige, CosRx and Medicube, as well as the boom in beauty tourism to South Korea, has solidified the nation’s status as a leader in high-performance, efficacious skincare — and often at a less premium price than leading Western brands.

“The landscape is competitive, but there’s room for more retailers, and there’s a need for it,” said Allison Slater Ray, co-founder of brand agency Breakthru Beauty, which works with many Korean brands. She said there is limited shelf space in any one store. “Customers are yearning for more retail options.”

A Second Wave and Rising Tide

There’s no doubt about the customer appetite for Asian beauty in the US. If Sukoshi’s executives don’t see the likes of Olive Young and Ulta Beauty as dilutive to their business, they will eventually compete with them on experience and exclusivity.

Ulta Beauty has secured a plethora of K-Beauty brands exclusively, while the tie-up between Olive Young and Sephora will focus squarely on skincare brands that are currently less available in the US. Sukoshi’s smaller footprint could mean it has less bargaining power when it comes to securing brands’ exclusivity.

Collins said while competition will be fierce in cosmopolitan cities, throughout many parts of middle America, there’s still room for more retailers. “There’s still a little bit of a hunger for something that feels fresh in beauty retail,” she said.

Expanding in the US also means navigating a more complex landscape of tariffs. But Dang said Sukoshi has not had to increase prices in the last year, which it achieved through a mixture of supplier concessions and margin absorption.

She’s confident that the retailer will continually offer a fresher selection of brands than its competitors, and that the experience is differentiated. She said she travels to Asia biannually, has a dedicated team in the market, and that by offering pan-Asian brands, Sukoshi automatically has the biggest selection. “Asian beauty is just so wide. K-Beauty only captures a certain component,” she said.

The store also has skin analysis machines, and staff are well-trained and knowledgeable; on a visit to the NYC location, The Business of Beauty witnessed a staff member patiently accompany a shopper around multiple gondolas explaining the difference between various eye products.

“If it’s so transactional, you can buy on Amazon [or] another store,” said Dang. “It’s the experience that really gets people coming.”

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