K-Beauty Cross-Border Platform Supply Case

Background

From 2016 to 2018, China's cross-border e-commerce experienced rapid growth. Platforms such as Kaola Haigou became key channels for Korean beauty products entering the Chinese market. During this period, Korean skincare, color cosmetics, and premium beauty brands quickly shifted from daigou (reseller)-driven sales to platform-based, large-scale, and formalized supply.

Challenges

Korean brands possessed strong product competitiveness, but entering Chinese cross-border platforms required solving multiple issues: platform procurement coordination, bulk stock preparation, pricing systems, batch management, sea freight container loading, bonded/warehousing handover, cross-border settlement, and sustained supply capability.

Platforms Involved

Centered on cross-border e-commerce platforms such as Kaola Haigou, the ecosystem integrated Korean brand owners, export supply chains, ocean freight logistics, warehousing and inbound operations, and Chinese cross-border retail channels to complete the entire supply chain from Korean sources to platform sales.

How Shared Capabilities Came into Play

DIYI acted as the cross-border supply middle-office: organizing Korean beauty product sourcing, consolidating multiple brands and SKUs, and managing quotations, order processing, batch tracking, container stuffing, shipping manifest preparation, logistics inbound, and subsequent platform supply coordination.

This project was not about single-product transactions but rather large-scale supply management involving multiple brands, multiple SKUs, and multiple batches.

Results

Typically, each order was measured in shipping containers of Korean beauty products, with cargo values averaging around KRW 1.2 billion, covering representative Korean beauty brands such as IOPE, Sulwhasoo, su:m37, and Whoo.

This project also demonstrated to our partners our core capabilities in Korean FMCG/beauty sectors: brand sourcing, cross-border platform supply, bulk sea freight execution, warehousing and inbound integration, and multi-SKU order management.