Korean Job Discussion Forums

[soulofseoul]

Hi
I was thinking about importing a product or two from back home, assuming I could find the right products to make it worth while doing,
I know it wouldnt be that easy and the products would have to be sold in chain stores if thats possible. Korea pretty much access to products that we can buy back home.
So has anyone done this or is continuing to do this nowadays?

I would like to venture into something other than teaching English down the road and this crossed my mind

Thanks in advance

[Chokse]

Running an import business is not easy in Korea. I know because it is one of the two businesses I run.

You will be best off if you can run it yourself (either online or out of an officetel that you rent). Getting products into a chain store is extremely difficult.

First, to sell any imported item in Korea, you must have a business license. You must also submit paperwork to the Korean government for import taxes, etc.

Once you have done this, you will have to have any imported products approved by the Korean government. Often, this requires paying for tests on the products to prove they are safe for local use. This is especially true for electronics, but also applies to food, clothing, etc.

Finally, getting things into Korean chain stores is difficult at best. You cannot actually approach the store about this. Under Korean law, stores must purchase products from distributors, and here's the crazy part... they must use no less than 3 distributors in the process (this is why prices are marked up so high in Korea. It is more about distribution costs than import taxes).

You will have to get three distributors to agree to accept your products and to pass the products between them, and then eventually to a chain store. You must do this for every chain store in which you would like your products sold.

It is a massive, and unnecessary amount of red tape. I decided it was easier to run my own online shopping site. Keep in mind that Gmarket, while it does not require distributors, does require a huge amount of red tape to get anything on the site. You are better off running a personal business and finding your own way to advertise (Google, Daum, Naver, and newspaper inserts have worked well for me).

Finally, to make this work, it will have to be a primary focus for you. If you are working as a teacher and doing the import business part time, you'll likely lose money on the venture. You will have to do this full time to make any real money.

[Koreadays]

what choske says is right, but depends on your products too.
but getting into stores is very hard.

what products are you interested in.
you dont have to say the item if you don't want.
let us know what kind of product it is
then we might be able to help more.

food and beverage is harder than textiles.

[soulofseoul]

Well I dont have any particular item yet in mind. Just thinking hard at what would sell here.
Id prefer the chain stores if it would be possible coz the products would sell better in person rather than a photo.
It wouldnt be electronics or food or anything. Just small items that I could pack a
lot of to save on shipping costs

So are there certain products that are easier than others to get into a chain store like Emart, Daiso etc. ??

[chungbukdo]

Anyone have experience selling on Gmarket (very small business size)?

[Chokse]

Like I said, there is no way in hell you are going to get anything into Emart or the like without some very serious connections.

[soulofseoul]

what about smaller chains like Daiso?

[Chokse]

It's true for just about any chain store in Korea.

[decolyon]

Hey Chokse, can you give me some infor on this?

I was thinking of manufacturing and selling some all natural weight loss pills and try to get them in gyms to be sold.

I've found the capsules, capsule assembling machines, and bulk powders like green tea, ginger, ginseng, multivitamin, and caffeine. I figure I'd have to get approval for the first batch or so, but after that as long as I don't switch suppliers it she be okay right?

Anyways, I've priced everything, with shipping and even possible import taxes, I think I could make a killing on this. Korean women are crazy about keeping slim and most gyms here are loaded with treadmills and cardio equipment. I thought it might be a good market.

Any ideas or suggestions?

[Chokse]

decolyon:

You'll almost certainly need a knowledgable Korean partner to make anything happen. This person needs to know the ins and outs of doing business in Korea. It also doesn't help that calling any K-Gov office will result in different "rules" depending on who you are talking to on that particular day.

If you are manufacturing everything here, you won't have to mess with any import stuff, but you will still need to submit everything to Korea's FDA for testing and approval.

Once you get the OK, and assuming you have a business license, you will need to go about finding the correct distribution chain to get it into stores. This is the very, very difficult part of this, and this is where having a Korean working with you, especially one with connections, helps.

All of this was too much for us to mess with. There was just too much potential for failure throughout the process. My wife is my business partner and the amount of paperwork that had to be done was daunting to say the least. Also, she didn't have the kinds of connections needed to get stuff into the distribution chain quickly. We estimated that if we followed all the rules and did everything perfectly, it would take more than one year before anything got onto a shelf in any store.

It's just not like the US or other western countries where it is pretty easy to get a local store to sell your product. Actually, I can't fathom the reason why so many distributors are needed here. I can only guess the government is doing it to keep more people employed (everyone working in the distribution chain).

In the end, we decided it was easiest to open our own place and to also sell online. We rent a decent sized officetel in a busy building in a good neighborhood, and with signs on the outside of the building, as well as other local advertising, we get a decent amount of foot traffic. We also get some word-of-mouth advertising.

Doing things via a website is even easier. It's pretty easy to set up your own website and is not expensive either. You can expect to pay about $5 per month for a good web hosting service and another $10 - $15 per year for a domain name. Make a good website and customers can buy online and transfer the money to your bank account, or, you can rent a credit card machine and let them call by phone to pay by credit card. Paying by credit card online was too messy due to Korean online payment regulations. We would have needed to make the site use ActiveX, and there was no way in hell I was going to screw around with the mess that is ActiveX. I wan't ActiveX to die, so I'm not going to do anything to promote it or to extend its life! Plus, it would have prevented those using non-IE web browsers from using the site. Bad for business in my book.

Anyway, if you set up a simple site and only use payments via bank transfer or call-in credit card orders, selling things here is pretty easy.

Advertising is also pretty easy, even if you are doing online only. If you are not good with making a web site, I would consider hiring someone who is familiar with getting you up on Google, Naver, Daum, etc. You do have to pay some advertising costs (each time someone links to you from one of those sites), but the fees are pretty small. Also, advertising by flyers in the newspapers is pretty cheap.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

[soulofseoul]

Chokse...would you know the costs involved for a business licence and
would you get that on the Korean side or our native country?

[Chokse]

Getting a business license is cheap, but I don't know the exact cost (also, it is all done in Korea). I am pretty certain of this because my wife usually complains a lot when something is outrageously expensive, and I didn't hear her complain about the cost of the business license when we were getting it. I did, however, hear plenty of complaining about all the paperwork, though I don't know how much of this was about the business license paperwork versus other paperwork for importing, safety testing, etc. Anyway, this is why I say it is helpful if you have a Korean partner. It can help make some of the paperwork nightmare a little easier.

I can't really say I know how you would go about sourcing diet pills or what restrictions you might face. We import a lot of knick-knack types of things from numerous countries, and in most cases we contact the maker directly. Sometimes they will direct us to a wholesaler, but usually they provide bulk pricing for products. It is different for each category of product, but I would start with the product maker first and they can usually point you in the right direction if they will not do direct sales.

[soulofseoul]

[Chokse]

Well, I say that our store sells knick-knacks for lack of a better word. Maybe I should have said we have a diverse selection of products (close to 200 different products).

I don't know all of the rules regarding a business license because I have an F5 visa and my wife is Korean. For us, there were no barriers to getting the license. I don't know the exact rules regarding an E type visa and a business license. Again, this is why I suggest having a Korean business partner.

I think it is very unlikely you'd be able to open any kind of stand inside any kind of chain store. However, it might be possible in some of the larger, neighborhood supermarkets. Even here, a small stand in a popular shopping place can be very expensive. You could perhaps test the waters buy setting up a table outside on the sidewalk. I see some foreigners doing this in the Itaewon area. I don't know if it is legal, but since I see them there each time I am in the area, I guess it is or that the authorities don't care.

Setting up an online shop is going to be the cheapest route, with almost no cost to set up an very little cost each month. For less than 500,000 won, you could be up and running, with some advertising as well.

[myenglishisno]

Why don't you import things for foreigners? I doubt you're going to get into the Korean market unless you have some very serious connections, as others have mentioned.