April 24, 2024

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[THE INVESTOR] Small consumer goods and media content companies in South Korea are seeking to diversify their global targets, and global e-commerce platform Amazon has been fast to pick up on the trend, offering promotions to attract such businesses.

Both sides are enjoying a boost, as the companies enjoy easier entry into unchartered markets while the online market giant secures stable sources of sales.

As China has been pursuing economic retaliation to protest Seoul’s decision to deploy an American missile defense system here, Korean businesses have been urged to seek sales in new markets.

Quickly leveraging on the demand, Amazon has been moving to attract more Korean sellers of competitive consumer goods including cosmetics and beauty products as well as creative children’s content with a global appeal. Amazon operates in 11 countries including the US, Canada, Mexico and the UK.

Last month, the US-based e-commerce giant posted a job opening for a marketing and business development account executive for Amazon Global Selling Korea, set to assist local businesses in selling their goods internationally via Amazon.com.

Earlier this month, Amazon also initiated an online seminar for Korean sellers in which it detailed its international sales procedures and mechanisms as well as shared successful cases of Korean firms whose overseas sales shot up via Amazon.

As of now, Korea-made cosmetics and beauty products as well as children’s content are some of the main product categories that are thriving on Amazon’s e-commerce marketplace.

For instance, Korean cosmetics brand TonyMoly’s sheet masks have topped the Facial Mask category on Amazon.com, which recently form a new Korean Beauty category on its marketplace to address rising demand.

On the media content front, Seoul-based startup SmartStudy has been boosting global sales of its children’s songs and games, based on the character Pinkfong the fox, through Amazon.

According to SmartStudy, its Best Kids Song with Pinkfong mobile app is currently one of the top-featured and most-downloaded apps on the Amazon app store’s Kids Music & Audio Category.

Meanwhile, Korean animation studio Okwang Studio said it began airing its animation BigDo2 Season 2 to more than 200 countries worldwide by partnering with Amazon’s paid video streaming platform Amazon Prime Video from February.

“In the mobile world, it’s become possible for content makers like us to directly tap into international markets via an e-commerce site like Amazon, bypassing local content distributors. It’s a new age of opportunities for domestic content creators,” said Chung Yeon-bin, the chief of SmartStudy’s US office.

By Sohn Ji-young/The Korea Herald (jys@heraldcorp.com)