E-commerce Brings Korean Products to China
The sales expansion of Korean retailers and brands has evolved from traditional bulk import to cross-border B2C eCommerce, offering more control on brand building and risk management to the sellers.
by Azoya
With a K-pop obsession and love for traveling to South Korea, Chinese consumers’ demand for Korean products has attracted many Korean retailers and brands to break into the China market. The sales expansion has evolved from traditional bulk import to cross-border B2C eCommerce, offering more control on brand building and risk management to the sellers.
Huge market demand.
Korean cosmetics exports to China surged 250 percent last year and accounted for almost one-fourth of all of China’s imported cosmetics. In addition, Korean fashion labels are becoming big business in China—Lane Crawford offers several Korean menswear brands like Woo Young Mi and is planning to start stocking Korean womenswear, according to a Reuters report.
Korean brands are granted privilege in branding and marketing.
The ability to leverage Korean celebrities and TV shows—which are massively popular in China—has been one of the major reasons cosmetics brands have been able to surge ahead, according to a recent report on Korean beauty brands in China by L2. For example, Laneíge has been launching promotions with spokesmodel and Korean drama star Song Hye Ko since 2008 and recently saw a significant sales boost for a lip product that was featured in the show in which she stars. Meanwhile, Innisfree, one of the most popular Korean beauty brands in China, had a wildly successful “Summer Love” campaign in 2015 featuring Korean influencers Lee Minho and Yoona that saw an average of 181,000 views per video on Youku.
Cross-border eCommerce helps to deliver more.
Under traditional bulk import, sellers need to invest a lot in local warehousing, local operation and more. Furthermore, the inspection requirement in exporting cosmetics products to China is onerous. It usually takes about a year to get one SKU approved, which in many cases, involves the animal test.
Cross-border eCommerce is a more flexible and agiler way to circumvent the barriers to directly sell to Chinese customers. MediHeal, a brand of L&P Cosmetics, is among those Korean retailers selling to China via cross-border direct shipping. By cooperating with Azoya, MediHeal expanded its sales to China without any major investment. Furthermore, all operational groundwork are covered by Azoya to create a satisfying customer experience in China.