Korea's Q4 2026 shopping calendar: the dates, and when to start

The fourth quarter at a glance

Korea's shopping calendar is set by public holidays, a government sale festival and a few dates the retail trade has made its own. The holiday dates below come from the official 2026 calendar published by the Korea AeroSpace Administration on 30 June 2025.

What last year's numbers say about Q4

In 2025, Korean shoppers bought clearly more from Europe in the fourth quarter than in the third. The National Data Agency's release of 2 February 2026 shows online purchases from sellers in the EU of KRW 155.5 billion in the fourth quarter of 2025, up 27.1% from the third quarter and 3.6% from a year earlier. Purchases from the UK rose 19.3% on the quarter, to KRW 30.2 billion. China is far larger, at KRW 1.47 trillion of the KRW 2.25 trillion total, but the jump from the third quarter is the part a European seller can plan for.

Inside Korea, total online shopping reached KRW 71.3 trillion in that quarter, 2.9% more than in the third. Clothing rose 44.7% on the quarter and cosmetics 5.1%.

For your company: the demand is there, but it rewards brands that are ready early. A brand that first appears in Korean search results in late November has little time to be indexed, reviewed and compared before the sale days.

Working back from Black Friday and Christmas

Count backwards from the dates you care about. This is the order we would use for a brand that sells direct from Europe or through one Korean partner:

1. Late September (now): list the Korean searches you want to be found for. Seasonal phrases include 블랙프라이데이 직구 (Black Friday direct purchase), 크리스마스 선물 추천 (Christmas gift ideas), 빼빼로데이 선물 (Pepero Day gifts) and 연말 선물 (year-end gifts). Check in Naver DataLab when last year's searches started to rise.
2. Early October: publish the Korean landing page and register it with Naver, which says new content appears within about a week of its crawler's visit. Two long weekends in October slow everything down, so do not leave this to the week before.
3. By 25 October: if you sell through a Korean partner, decide with them whether to join K-Sale Festa. Sign-up is free on the festival's website until 25 October, and the organisers link participants to retail channels including Naver's Sangsaeng Market, Lotte ON and Hmall.
4. Late October to early November: run creator posts and Naver blog content. Paid posts must carry a Korean ad label such as #광고.
5. Mid-November: publish your Black Friday offer in Korean, with the won price, who pays import duty and VAT, and the last order date for delivery before Christmas.

Chuseok and Seollal: plan 2027 now

For Chuseok this year, it is too late to start. Korean department stores ran pre-orders weeks ahead: Shinsegae took orders from 14 August to 6 September for about 370 gift sets, including imported wine, olive oil and balsamic vinegar. That is the window a European food or wine brand has to be in, and it needs a Korean importer with stock already in the country.

The official 2027 calendar, published on 29 June 2026, puts Seollal (Lunar New Year) on 7 February 2027, with holidays from 6 to 9 February, and Chuseok on 15 September 2027. If pre-orders again open about six weeks ahead, as they did this year, Seollal sets would go on sale around the end of December 2026 and Chuseok 2027 sets in early August. That is our estimate, not an announced date.

For your company: if gifting suits your product, talk to Korean importers or department store buyers about 2027 Seollal in October and November 2026, not in January.

Where HB Crossborder fits

Our Korea Entry package sets up Naver, a KakaoTalk channel and a Korean landing page, then publishes monthly Korean content around dates like these. We do not handle customs, KC certification or importer contracts; we refer those to partners. See our services, or send us one URL and get a free visibility check within 48 hours to see what Korean shoppers find before the season starts.