Korean buying services are becoming increasingly popular with non-Korean residents because you can get exclusive items not sold outside Korea (including 2nd hand collector items).
Pros of Korean Buying Services
While globalization made buying things worldwide easier, some Koreans only sell their collector items (e.g. K-Pop collector items) on Korean platforms such as Bunjang, Wesellit, and Junggonara. You can get custom-made key rings, manhwa, and exclusive items in Korea (like Fila Pokemon shoes).
I’ve been using Korean buying services for a few months now and I have to say that it has really helped me save money. The first thing you need to know is that there are two types of buying services: one for clothes, shoes, accessories, etc., and another for food. You can use either or both depending on what you want to buy.
The rise of crypto (such as Bitcoin) also made it cheaper to pay for such services by avoiding the hefty fees that PayPal charges for business owners and cross-border transactions.
Cons of Korean Buying Services
Many cons deter people from using Korean buying services such as
- You have to trust the buyer not to run away with your payment
- Long shipping time, sometimes up to 6 weeks as they will wait for sufficient orders before shipping
- Prices are subject to changes due to changing shipping rates and exchange rates
- Extra hidden fees like some charges for photo-taking, checking, etc
- Communication issues as a buyer might not be natural English speaker and slow response time
Below is the comparison of Korean buying services (updated Aug 2022)
| Purchasing Agent | Service Charge of Total Purchase Cost and Min Fee (in USD) | First Time Promo | Extra Fee (excluding exchange rates fee, shipping fee) | Best For |
| KoreaBuyingAgent | 10% of Total Purchase Cost, minimum $10 | - |
Extra bubble wrap service fee: 2 USD Free first 5 photos for warehouse, 1 USD per photo thereafter 5 USD for power-on testing with video Free package consolidation Free storage for up to 90 days, 1 USD / package daily after that Crypto payment method |
Free package consolidation Allow crypto payment |
| KoreaBuyandShip |
5% (TransferWise) 10% (PayPal), minimum $9 10% (TransferWise), 15% (PayPal), minimum $15 for second-hand items at Junggonara, Bunjang, Witchform
|
$3 off the first order. Discount for next order of up to $50 for Youtube review, $30 for a blog review, $10 for Instagram Feed |
Free storage for 3 months | Good promotions and catered for 2nd hand shops |
| AVECKO |
10%, minimum $5 4.9% above the Paypal exchange fee |
- | Free storage for 180 days | Longest free storage, but not recommended as many warning signs |
| Delivered | 8% + $5 per store (up to 5 item/store) | $2 points when signing up |
Free storage for 1 month, 1 USD/package daily after that up to 60 days USD 3 to consolidate the package USD 5 to split the package USD 2 content verification USD 10 for return USD 5/package for vacuum packing service |
Cater for vacuum packing and consolidating/splitting service |
| KoreanBuddy |
12%, minimum of 12 USD (6% if using Bitcoin but unconfirmed) 6% above the exchange rate for Paypal |
$5 for the first order with promo code/referral $6 for review discount |
10 USD for return |
Good promotions |
| CollectKorea | 9.9%, $1/item and $4/shop, minimum of $10 | - | Free combining and repacking service |
Relative expensive. Free combining and repacking service. Not proven as cannot find many reviews. |
| KoreaToU |
10%, minimum USD 5 4.4% + $0.30 USD for PayPal |
- |
Free photo and checking USD 10 for over 15kg |
Not proven as cannot find many reviews. |
| Harum.io |
USD 5 per 30 normal items USD 5 for a second-hand item |
- |
Free photo-taking service |
Relatively Cheap and trusted |
Next, we will go through some bad reviews of the different services (since good reviews might be fake or incentivized). Fake reviews might be from competitors too but worth reading, just in case.
KoreaBuyingAgent Bad Reviews
From SiteJabber, among 7 reviews in 2022, Tatiana H bought some Kpop albums and said it was more expensive than the provided calculators and took longer than expected during buying. Nevertheless, the shipping was fast and the service was responsive.
I paid more than I expected to pay given the calculations they provide on their website, it's more expensive than other pages because they have service fee and shop fee, they take a lot of time to buy the items so I could not buy all I wanted.
However, the service was very reactive and shipping was really fast. Due to the shipping priority the cost is expensive too, they do not offer shipping options.
I would use this service again because they give us the oportunity to buy all korean items we want.
KoreaBuyandShip Bad Reviews
I couldn't find any bad reviews so it might be either used infrequently or good.
From Sope_TradeGo on YouTube, it is a great idea to buy (e.g. from WeVerse) and ship to their warehouse before shipping out.
I ordered them from weverse and send them to Koreabuyandship warehouse! Shipping from weverse to the warehouse was free (shipping in korea is free for purchase over 29$ from weverse) and then asked Koreabuyandship to ship the packages to me! I can assure you that it's waaaay cheaper!
AVECKO Bad Reviews
From an archived post in Oct 2021, Avecko had recently ignored a buyer/reseller (Lisi) when they had shipped out items that were not authentic.
Avecko ignored countless emails from me asking for a return and refund. I eventually opened a Paypal case against them in which they finally responded to my message on Paypal. I was not aware at the time that the bot on Paypal closed cases in favor of the merchant if you did not escalate your case while it was still open. I provided the tracking number and the return merchandise was in transit so i assumed a human would review my case with paypal before closing in favor of the merchant. An unfortunate event for me, the case was closed in favor of the merchant. I proceeded to call Paypal and i was told there was nothing they could do because it was charged through my bank. I used my Robinhood account for this payment. I needed to open a charge back with Robinhood in order for my money to be refunded. This was more than $400 in total. I proceeded to open a charge back with Robinhood and was told that it would take up to 90 days for me to hear about the results of my charge back as they had to deal with their bank provider. As part of the process of trying to speak to a representative at Robinhood fraud department i found out the following. You can not speak directly with a representative at Rohinhood fraud department and can only speak to the assistant. Robinhood fraud agents do not make the final call as to the outcome of your case because they bank with JP Morgan Chase who is in charge of investigating outgoing transactions. After four weeks of waiting and trying to speak to someone regarding my case i was told that Avecko( merchant) told the Chase investigators that they had already given me my refund, there was no such transactions in my paypal or my Robinhood account to verify this!. I am completely baffled at how this buying agent treats its customers. They refuse to respond to any of my emails and i see that the handbag i bought has been re-listed in the marketplace again by the third party seller.
- The Fake handbag i was sold and returned to Avecko to process my refund in which they returned to the original merchant and collected my refund but never gave back to me.
Therefore, save yourself headache and do not use this buying agent and be very careful when purchasing through paypal using a third party bank and not your paypal funds at hand.
Delivered Bad Reviews
There was a bad review in TrustPilot from Fiona Chung in HK regarding the non-responsive support.
i waited for a few days after paying for my goods, but i have not heard back from them. Not sure what's going on.
Delivered Korea did reply promptly that it was due to Korean Holiday so it might not be a real issue.
We are so sorry that we could not reply to your order request promptly. As we mentioned on our website, both our main office and warehouse were closed on 1st and 6th June due to Local Election Day(1st June) and Memorial Day(6th June) in Korea.
We have submitted your order right on the following day. We hope we can receive your package and ship it out to you soon. You can check your package status on your Dashboard. Again, sorry for not having been able to meet your needs on time, and thank you for using our service.
KoreanBuddy Bad Reviews
There are a couple of bad reviews among the many good reviews. A bad study from Huiningg Yang, Singapore, indicated that their shipping fees are really expensive compared to other services.
They are quick in response and seems reliable. However the shipping fees are too expensive. I was able to find another proxy service at a much reasonable price. 2x pair of socks shipping to sg cost about 24 sgd. They only had ems and DHL options.
Another review in 2021 by HB from the US said their update is very slow after buying.
I've been using KoreanBuddy since they first launched several years ago. They have been my go-to for ordering any items from Korea due to their quick responses and fast delivery. More recently though I have had several issues with KoreanBuddy and I am not sure if it's because of the pandemic or they have gotten a lot more popular, but either way it has been a very unprofessional experience. They still place the orders very quickly but they take a very long time to update you on when the items will arrive and take forever to ship out. After waiting a month for a response, I messaged them asking for an update on my order to which they responded "oh yeah, the items have arrived a while ago and we'll ship it out soon" as if I had to remind them about my order. In another separate order I placed, they didn't bother to tell me till a few weeks later that an item I requested was sold out or didn't arrive. Another time, I saw they posted on social media that they would be going on vacation in a month and orders placed during a specific time frame will still be shipped out on time, so I decided to place my order before they went on vacation. Even though my items arrived before they went off on vacation, they didn't ship out my items until AFTER they came back so I had to wait almost three months for my items to get to me. Every time I messaged them, their responses have been very snarky even though before they were much more friendly. It's extremely disappointing to see how they treat their loyal customers from the start and I will be looking for new proxies for future purchases.
CollectKorea Bad Reviews
There are no recent reviews except the collected testimonials on their websites. Would prefer not to try them given the alternatives.
KoreaToU Bad Reviews
There are no recent reviews except the collected testimonials on their websites. Would prefer not to try them given the alternatives.
Harum.io Bad Reviews
There are plenty of good reviews from manhwa fans as their prices are reasonable. Even a Tesla car owner suggested people buy Tesla car adapters through Harum.io.