Main Issues That Global Buyers Face At Korean Online Stores

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Although due to the Korean wave many beauty, K-pop, electronics and other Korean products are gaining popularity worldwide, it’s still significantly difficult for foreigners to purchase these goods from local online stores and marketplaces. Below we’ve listed a number of obstacles that global buyers face when they are shopping for Korean products online and proposed solutions.

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1.

Language Barrier and Translation Difficulties

Unfortunately, even these days, Google translate and copy & paste don’t work on many Korean websites. Thus, many global buyers are experiencing trouble with reading and understanding product specifications. A clear understanding of all the details is especially important if you are buying, for example, electronics. It would be a shame to order a device and only to find out upon receiving that it’s not at all what is expected.

2.

Finding Suppliers

Finding suppliers in Korea may be complicated due to multiple reasons. Aside from the language barrier, many suppliers don’t want to deal with international companies due to the complicated processing of export documents. Furthermore, if it’s your first transaction, they have more trust in local businesses.

How to solve these issues? Use Delivered Korea’s We Buy and Ship service. The Delivered team will purchase the items on your behalf.

3.

Shipping is Too Expensive if Products are Bought from Multiple Stores

International shipping is way more expensive than domestic. (In Korea, shipping domestically is often even free). Thus, when a person orders products from multiple stores, it’s way cheaper to receive all the purchases first at a location in Korea, consolidate all packages, and then ship to the final destination in another country.

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4.

Can't Register an Account and/or Request Shipping Without a Korean Mobile Phone Number

Most Korean stores and marketplaces require a Korean mobile phone number upon registration. Furthermore, even if it’s possible to register an account, almost all require a mobile phone number for shipping because local carriers are used to calling consignees to arrange delivery.

How to solve these issues? Use You Buy and We Ship service. Delivered Korea provides a free Korean address. You can start using it immediately after you sign up.

5.

Can't Participate in Any Events

Discounts, 1+1 events, and other promotional activities are often targeting only local customers, and many great deals are not available to buyers from other countries.

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6.

Complicated Payment Methods

Many local websites only accept Korean debit and credit cards. Even if you have one, the payment verification process, certificates, and special software installation may be extremely complicated and confusing.

How to solve these issues? Use Delivered Korea’s We Buy and Ship service. Delivered accepts payments with Visa, MasterCard, American Express, PayPal, JBC, UnionPay, Wise, Transfez, and WireBarley.

7.

A Seller Doesn't Ship Abroad

International shipping is complicated so many local sellers don’t want to bother themselves with shipping their products abroad.

How to solve this issue? Delivered Korea ships worldwide via multiple economy and express services. You can estimate shipping costs by using our shipping calculator.

8.

Bulk Orders

Let’s say you are ordering K-pop albums for you and your friend, or you are a small business that does dropshipping. In both cases, you order at once several items that need to be delivered to different addresses.

How to solve this issue? Delivered Korea can split your original package into multiple packages so that you can request to ship them separately to different delivery addresses. Click here to submit the Split Request Form, and our CS team will keep you updated regarding the progress.

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9.

High Return Fees or Inability to Return a Product

Some products, like clothes, are too expensive to return from abroad. Furthermore, sometimes returning a product is not even possible because in Korea, by law, sellers have to accept returns and issue refunds or send replacements within only a week. Therefore, it’s way better to check the quality of the products and if the correct products were received before they leave Korea.

How to solve this issue? The Delivery operations team provides content verification services and even takes photos of your products. If necessary, the Delivered Korea CS team is also ready to help you return the products.

You can check all the services that Delivered provides here.