Amazon steps up to boost K-beauty, pledges $1M in first-year sales support for new sellers

'Amazon Beauty in Seoul 2026' held in Gangnam-gu

Four key projects launched to drive K-beauty's global growth

Shin Hwa-sook, head of Amazon Global Selling Korea, announces four projects to accelerate K-beauty's global growth at "Amazon Beauty in Seoul 2026," held Tuesday at the Grand InterContinental Seoul Parnas in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. [Yonhap]

"One in five Amazon beauty customers buys K-beauty through Amazon. But we must remember that four out of five have yet to be reached — that is the untapped market still in front of us."

Amazon is rolling up its sleeves to drive K-beauty's global expansion. Shin Hwa-sook, head of Amazon Global Selling Korea, said Tuesday at "Amazon Beauty in Seoul 2026," held at the Grand InterContinental Seoul Parnas in Gangnam-gu, that the company would pursue four key initiatives in 2027 "to secure leadership in the global market alongside K-beauty sellers and strengthen the industry's long-term sustainability."

The first initiative is Project Million, which will provide comprehensive support to 50 new sellers with the goal of reaching $1 million or more in sales during their first year on Amazon. Support will cover product planning, listings, logistics and marketing.

Project Titan will see Amazon partner with seven leading K-beauty brands over the next three years on joint business ventures. Amazon will build an end-to-end model spanning business planning, order fulfillment, pricing, product launches, marketing and brand protection. Proven elements of the model will later be extended to a broader pool of Korean sellers.

Project Silk Road focuses on K-hair care and wellness, with a strategy to bring 50 new sellers onto the platform next year and add 200 new products to cultivate next-generation K-beauty categories. Project Autobahn, meanwhile, will help K-beauty brands enter five European countries, providing practical support on taxation, product certification and regulatory compliance in each market.

"This is not the time to question how long the K-beauty trend will last," Shin said. "It is the time to decide how we can grow this market even bigger and increase our share of it." Yoon Sang-hyun, vice chairman of Kolmar Korea, addressed the question of whether K-beauty is sustainable, saying, "I am 100 percent certain the answer is yes," and called for investment in areas such as AI and healthcare technology convergence.

K-beauty sales by Korean sellers on Amazon grew roughly twofold in the first nine months of this year compared with the same period last year, with K-beauty's growth rate on the platform running more than three times faster than the overall beauty category. Market research firm Circana identified high-earning consumers as a key driver: K-beauty buyers in the United States are between 26 and 45 years old, earn an annual income of $125,000 and spend $81 per person on K-beauty each year.

Wendy Franks, Amazon's vice president of the US beauty category, said consumer engagement with K-beauty on Amazon is outpacing the industry's overall growth rate. "Consumers are coming back to Amazon to repurchase," she said.

The role of fulfillment in expanding K-beauty's global footprint also drew attention at the event, as surging demand has made overseas inventory management increasingly critical. Amazon supports sellers through its one-stop logistics system, Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA).

"FBA will play a decisive role in achieving the next scale of K-beauty," Shin said. "Investing only in brands and products is not enough — without operational improvements, you cannot reach customer satisfaction."

soho0902@heraldcorp.com