Almost nobody starts from zero with Korea. You are already selling somewhere, and all that differs is the distance from that spot to a Korean buyer. A seller on Amazon, a seller on Temu and a seller with only a Shopify store each have a completely different first move. This chapter starts from where you are standing now.
The distance to Korea
Amazon sellers: there is no Korean marketplace
This is the first thing an Amazon seller needs to know. Amazon does not operate a marketplace in Korea. None of the 19 marketplaces open to sellers is Korea, and no launch has been announced.
From 2021 until the first half of 2026 there was one workaround: the 11st Amazon Global Store. 11st selected items from US Amazon inventory that could ship to Korea, listed them in won, and Korean shoppers bought Amazon products inside a Korean app. Sellers never applied for it; 11st pulled from the catalogue.
That route closed on 30 June 2026. 11st and Amazon ended the partnership after five years, and 11st has since pivoted with JD.com toward export rather than import.
- ▸Amazon has no Korean marketplace, and the 11st workaround ended on 30 June 2026
- ▸A Korean who wants your Amazon product now orders on amazon.com and routes it through a forwarding service or international shipping
- ▸In that case you cannot even tell the order came from a Korean customer
- ▸Being on Amazon no longer puts you in front of Korean buyers. Korea is now a market you design for separately
The implication is clean. The stretch where a platform connected Korean demand to you for free has disappeared. What remains is direct shipping from your own store, listing on a Korean marketplace such as Coupang, and making Korean buyers come looking for you. The rest of this guide is about the third one.
AliExpress sellers: you are already selling to Korea
If you sell on AliExpress, market entry is behind you. Korea is a core market, and at 835,700 searches a month AliExpress is the most-searched shopping platform in the country.
The structure changed once in September 2025. Korea's Fair Trade Commission conditionally approved a 50:50 joint venture between Shinsegae and Alibaba, putting AliExpress Korea under the same roof as Gmarket and Auction. The condition was that the two sides cannot see each other's Korean customer data.
For a seller already there, the problem is not access. It is that nothing accumulates.
Which is why the timing matters. As covered in the previous chapter, growth in Chinese cross-border purchases fell from 19.8% to 0.6% and apparel and cosmetics went negative. The room to compete on price alone is narrowing, and that makes this the window to convert the same product into a remembered brand at a higher unit price.
Temu sellers: the semi-managed model is open in Korea
Temu gets 531,500 Korean searches a month and has led AliExpress on monthly active users every month since December 2025 (May 2026: Temu 8.05m, AliExpress 6.68m).
What matters to a seller is that Temu runs two different models.
If you want a brand to survive the transaction, semi-managed is the one. Fully managed produces revenue without a name.
Temu also runs a Local Seller Program across 37 markets. Either way, brand recognition does not build up inside Temu. People open Temu looking for something cheap, not to remember who made it. The workable combination is to use Temu as a revenue channel while building brand search outside it.
Own-store sellers: the best margin and the hardest problem
Shipping to Korea directly from your own Shopify store means no commission, your own customer data and total control of the brand experience. The setup is simple too. Once you add Korea under Markets, Shopify adds the personal customs code field to checkout automatically.
There is one problem. Nobody knows your site exists. A marketplace hands you traffic; your own store makes you generate it. In Korea that traffic comes mostly from Naver search and from communities. That route is covered in selling to Korea from your own store.
The Korean marketplaces
Why Coupang is the lowest barrier, and what the paperwork and settlement actually look like, is in the Coupang Global Marketplace chapter.
Naver Smart Store needs Korean business registration, so you cannot open one directly. But in marketing terms it is the most important marketplace in the country. On Naver, product search and content search share the same screen, so blog reviews and community mentions feed into shopping results themselves. That mechanism is covered in the Korean e-commerce landscape.
Qoo10: we do not recommend it
Qoo10 grew fast in Korea by acquiring TMON in 2022 and WeMakePrice and Interpark Commerce in 2023. Then it collapsed in 2024. In July it failed to settle payments owed to sellers and consumers. In August it cut over 80% of its Singapore staff. In September the Monetary Authority of Singapore ordered it to stop its payment services there.
Korean search volume is also small at 13,820 a month. This is a risk to your money rather than your marketing, and there is no reason to enter now.
Where to start
- 1If you sell on AmazonThere is currently no platform route into Korea for you. Pick one of direct shipping from your own store or a Coupang listing, and start with what a Korean finds when they search your brand.
- 2If you sell on AliExpress or TemuYou already have Korean revenue. Take pricing control back through the semi-managed route, and build brand search outside the platform.
- 3If you only have your own storeAdd Korea under Markets and switch on the customs code field. Technically you can sell that same day. What remains is being found.
- 4If you are opening a new marketplaceCoupang Global has the lowest barrier. Three documents, no Korean entity.
- 5In every caseCheck what appears when a Korean searches your brand name. For most brands, the answer is nothing.
Frequently asked questions
Can we list on several platforms at once?
Yes, and most sellers do. Just keep pricing consistent. Korean shoppers will find the discrepancy immediately, because price comparison is built into the search screen itself in Korea.
We used to see Korean sales through 11st. What happened?
The 11st Amazon Global Store shut down on 30 June 2026. Whatever Korean demand came through that route is now going somewhere else, or nowhere at all. Searching your category keyword in Korea shows you which of the two it is.
We already sell through Temu and AliExpress. Do we need a Korean store?
Not necessarily. But that revenue is accruing to the platform rather than to your brand. For the repeat purchase to come back to you, something has to exist when a Korean searches your brand name. That is a separate question from opening a store.
What are the commission rates on Korean platforms?
They vary by platform and category, so check your own category in each seller centre rather than trusting a summary. Worth noting though: direct shipping from your own store carries zero platform commission, and that difference is often exactly the size of a Korean marketing budget.