Dear Korean beauty online shops in Korea, the U.S., and elsewhere,

Right now, the world is your oyster extract eye patch. Korean beauty fever has gripped the world and business is booming. I mean, kbeauty is even popping up at Sephora and in Birchboxes.

And yet there are so many ways to take that momentum and still fail.

While talking to my friend Cat at Snow White and the Asian Pear, we both expressed frustration that the wishes and annoyances of customers outside of Korea aren’t always explained to kbeauty brands and online shops. It doesn’t seem fair to expect you to play by rules that aren’t always clear. The thing is, we want you to succeed. We very much want lots of fantastic shopping options. We want to buy products we love and can tell our friends about. And yet while compiling this list, the number of ways I’ve seen companies and brands mess up kept creeping higher and higher. Eventually I capped the list at 20, but only because I’m lazy and want to move on to more pleasant things–hopefully other people can enumerate the issues I’ve missed.

The Golden Fanlaw

The key to understanding the mentality of the majority of Korean beauty customers where I live (the U.S.) is this: there’s an expectation that higher prices for products should result in a higher level of service.

What do I mean by services? Pretty much anything in this post, ranging from answering customer service emails to including samples with orders to higher-level things like including ingredient lists on the shop website.

I want to hammer a point home: there is room for shops that charge all sorts of prices. *clap* There is room for shops that offer all levels of service above a bare minimum baseline of sending authentic, unexpired products within a reasonable period of time. *clap* Issue arise when prices are higher than the level of service offered. *mic drop*

This post explains which things Korean beauty fans complain about most in relation to online shopping. With the exception of some really egregious things, any one of these does not pose enormous problems for a shop. In combination, they will limit the willingness of kbeauty fans to pay full prices for your products and even place orders with you.

Communication Issues

1. Grammar and spelling issues in general

First off, I want to make it clear that I’m not into shaming non-native English speakers and writers. I find sincere attempts to communicate with me really nice and I’m of the opinion that what matters is the content of the message and not the correctness of the words. Ideally, the grammar and spelling should be good enough to communicate the message clearly.

Demanding total grammatical correctness can be silencing. I learned while teaching professors how to teach writing more effectively that students can really only correct one grammatical error in the course of a semester. Maybe two if they work really hard. With that in mind, demanding a high level of fluency from the English of non-native speakers is problematic because there’s no way a person can acquire that level of skill overnight if they want to improve.

That said, not everyone agrees with that sentiment. Plenty of people, consciously and unconsciously, evaluate the trustworthiness of a site and the value of products it sells based at least in part on the proficiency of the English used by the shop. This is certainly the case for shops headquartered in the United States.

A potential fix would be for the shop or brand to get some quick freelance help from someone–I suspect that a lot of beginning bloggers would totally go for a one-off trade of freelance editing in exchange for products they’ve been wanting to try. A quick request for help on the company instagram or twitter could net a few people who would be able to assist (and who might end up reviewing products, ayyy, win-win).

That said, certain communication and website errors can really work against a business and they don’t require a ton of work to correct–just a bit of attention to detail or quick changes.

2. Spelling errors and inconsistencies that screw up the search function

In this case I mean brand, product, and product category names misspelled or spelled differently in two places. Does IOPE become IPOE in some places? If so, you might end up Edgar Allan Po’. As in, poor. You know, I should not make puns like this. Moving on.

3. Google-translated descriptions that make no sense in English

Google translate is useful for getting basic information while attempting to read foreign websites, but if the majority of your product information is coming from a machine translation, it will not only be unclear, but often hilariously bad. It’s actually better to give less product information, but make sure that it’s understandable than to use a machine-translated text.

Your Website and Emails

4. Spammy emails

If there’s no way to unsubscribe from your newsletter then you’re sending spam. If there’s a way to unsubscribe and it still keeps coming anyway, you’re sending spam and I will use gmail’s helpful “report” button on your message while cursing your email to the depths of hell.

5. Endless redirect loops and mobile unfriendly sites

I would like to lay in bed after a long day with my iPad or phone and blow money on your shopping site. If a desktop-only site format or endless redirect loops prevent me from browsing, actually checking out, or easily seeing my account information, I’m going to mosey on over to a site that actually works, slice open my PayPal account, and dump it all on them.

Social Media Messes

6. Shady contests

Does your list of giveaway winners look like a blogger roll call? Are your winners all stereotypically gorgeous with popular social media accounts? Are your contests and giveaways rigged as hell? If so, you might be running shady contests. We notice, trust me.

7. Spamming the AB subreddit

If you’re a brand or business you need to register in order to participate in the Asian Beauty subreddit. There are also rules regarding your participation. If you’re posting without regard to the rules or you haven’t registered…no.

Pricing Madness

8. U.S. vs. Korea price differences

I get that it’s expensive to import things to the US. But when products sold by U.S. online shops are routinely sold for many times less in Korea? No.

What’s always been charming to me about kbeauty is the amount of hustle in the industry–so much hard work and innovation sold at very fair prices. To toss aside that legacy and think kbeauty will succeed long-term in the West is ridiculous. If kbeauty is to have long-term success, it needs to become for a lot of people a routine, normal thing to buy. If pricing is directed at wealthier consumers interested in chasing trends…after kbeauty’s heat cools a bit they will take their interest and money elsewhere and there will be no loyal base.

The motto of kbeauty in the West should be: high-quality skincare within reach. Within reach. WITHIN. REACH.

And don’t cite $650 creams as a comparison to demonstrate the “in reachness” of kbeauty because I, beauty addict and breadwinner in a household with two PhDs worth of student loans, will case skylines of shade.

9. Super high shipping costs

On some sites, prices are low–until it comes time to ship the products, at which point the cost of shipping becomes prohibitive. Yeah, we realize what’s up and I usually just end up shopping elsewhere so that I don’t need to deal with the ever-present threat of a shopping cart mindfuck after working for some time on a haul.

Customer Service Woes

10. Non-responsive customer service related to an order I’ve placed

Let’s be real: I’m lazy, so if I take the time to track down your email address and write you a message about my order, it’s probably important. If I don’t hear anything back after, say, 48 hours during the business week in the country where you’re headquartered I’m probably going to start getting irritated.

11. Unhelpful or rude customer service

Don’t put the office dick in charge of the email. Like, if you regularly want to punch the person managing the shop email it’s likely that customers will, too, and will shop elsewhere next time.

Likewise, don’t put the most clueless person in the office in charge of email. If they confuse you, they will certainly confuse customers, who will shop elsewhere next time.

Handling and Logistics

12. Poor control of stock: consistently selling out-of-stock items

If I put something in my cart, pay for it, and it turns out later that it’s out of stock that’s a bummer, but not the end of the world. If that happens consistently you need to get your website to match your stock levels because I plan my orders around what I think is available and just stop shopping with retailers that sell me out of stock items too many times.

13. Selling soon-to-expire products with no warning

If a product you’re selling me has a 2-3 year shelf life until it’s opened and there are 9 or fewer months to go until it is expired, please let me know in the listing. Very clearly. I’ll probably still buy it knowing that, but I won’t be pissed about receiving it because I made an informed decision about using it.

14. Unexplained handling delays

Handling delays happen. If it gets to be, say, 10 business days since I placed my order, it hasn’t shipped, and you haven’t contacted me to explain why my order isn’t in the mail I’m not going to be very happy.

15. Missing items, items broken due to poor packing

Account for everything that’s supposed to be in the box and make sure it’s packaged competently. I can’t believe I need to say this, but…

Fanservice

16. No samples

People who shop on eBay for snail’s sake receive freebie samples with their orders. They don’t even need to be earth-shatteringly good samples. Yeah, I’m not exactly thrilled to be getting another Skinfood root veg toner or whatever, but even newbies recognize samples as a sign of thanks to customers and necessary part of the beauty shopping ritual in Korea. This applies less to U.S.-based shops, but I don’t necessarily think that skipping samples is a wise policy even where they’re harder to come by.

The fact that I need to explain this to people who know far more about how Korean beauty shopping works is mind-boggling. Grab some crappy samples. Stuff them in the box. Ship the box. Shops that send zero samples in a world where some shops have caught on and are sending a lot makes you look lame and less appealing, even if your prices are lower.

17. No samples when they’ve been promised

In the event that your shop promises x number of samples with an order of a certain amount and then doesn’t send them and doesn’t explain why they’re not there…LAME. Even more than not tossing a few in the box without such a promise, customers see this as really bad form.

18. Treating bloggers better than non-blogging customers

If you happen to discover that bloggers are among your customers, please for the love of avoiding a PR mishap, do not treat them (us) differently than your other customers. In this case, I’m not talking about sending bloggers press samples (that a whole different thing–and some non-bloggers and bloggers already feel pressed about that, so…), but rather someone like me making a regular order and somehow getting it much faster than other customers and/or with lots of random freebies or whatever that people without blogs never receive. Readers pick up on that and it’s bad for both the shop and the blogger. It’s bloggerservice. Do fanservice. Be cute and awesome with all of your customers.

Sink Your Shop in 1 Quick and Easy Step

19. Go on a nasty offensive when someone makes a negative statement about your shop

I get that customers can be awful and don’t always handle things calmly and all that, but I really don’t recommend escalating things with them because that email will end up on social media in less than 8 minutes and it will look nasty, even if the context for the stern email felt warranted to you at the time. Mentioning things like lawsuits to customers is just plain ridiculous, especially if you’re in Korea and they’re not. The law, believe it or not, doesn’t quite work that way. And even if it did, would it really for a $16 snail cream?

Above all, do not, under any circumstances, publicly go after customers of any sort that you find problematic and do things like slam them on social media or release their personal information. Don’t stalk their blogs and leave nasty comments. Don’t get your friends to do it either. Don’t downvote their YouTube videos.

When someone makes a negative statement about your shop (or product, for that matter) either 1) stay the fuck away or 2) contact them in a very calm manner and try to forge some sort of peace.

Although going on the defensive (or offensive) to defend your shop against someone you perceive to be a bully may seem like a good idea at the time, the only way to effectively counter those claims is by having so many satisfied customers that they–completely on their own out of the love for your shop in their hearts–step up to say that their experiences were different.

20. Illegal shit. Counterfeit products, expired products.

Don’t do it. Under any circumstance. It will haunt your shop forever, if it even survives. Also it’s illegal, both things. No. Just no.

OK–that’s my list of 20 things Korean beauty shops can do to crash and burn despite the kbeauty craze in the West. What am I missing? What did I get wrong? I’m hoping that Cat at Snow White and the Asian Pear gives us her list, but I’d love to see lists from lots of people–it makes sense to talk about this stuff!