Skin care products sell best over Single’s Day

The best-selling Korean goods online during China’s Singles Day on Nov. 11 were skin care products, a report by the Korea Customs Service showed Thursday.

The government agency analyzed sales of Korean products on Alibaba’s Tmall from Nov. 11-20.

Hair products ranked second, followed by body products like washes and foam cleansers. Makeup was fourth, followed by lip products. Sanitary pads, shampoos, female business suits, portable projectors and health supplements also made the top 10.

Although China’s IT startups like Xiaomi are rising as strong contenders against Korean businesses, Chinese still want Korean-made home appliances and portable IT gadgets, the report said.

Statistics Korea showed a similar trend.

According to the agency’s statistics on online shopping, Korea exported 396.9 billion won ($336 million) in skin care products and cosmetics to other countries via the Internet as of the third quarter this year, which accounted for more than 50 percent of the total online exports of 788.5 billion won.

The Chinese were the largest customer group, who bought 494.2 billion won of Korean products online in total, followed by American and Japanese consumers.

The second best-selling Korean products were apparel and fashion items.

Conversely, the most popular products bought online by Korean consumers were clothing made in other countries. Koreans purchased 470.3 billion won of foreign-made apparel on overseas websites, accounting for about 39 percent of the country’s total online imports of 1.19 trillion won as of September.

The figure is only dated up to the third quarter and could further expand when including last month’s Black Friday sales.

The study also showed that the amount of Korean products sold overseas has surged 78.3 percent in the first nine months compared to the same period last year, to 788.4 billion won. Koreans’ purchases of overseas products online also grew 5.7 percent during the same period to nearly 1.2 trillion won.

China was the biggest buyer of Korean products, accounting for 62.7 percent, or 494.2 billion won, and up 164.9 percent year-on-year. The biggest market from which Korean consumers bought was the United States, which accounted for 72.4 percent, or 867.8 billion won.

BY SONG SU-HYUN, KIM DONG-HO [song.suhyun@joongang.co.kr]