SINGAPORE – Singapore shoppers have been getting their fix of K-beauty and other South Korean products at home – no air ticket, currency conversion or hangul translation app required.
They are among South-east Asia’s top spenders on Korean products sold directly by South Korean sellers on Lazada, thanks to the e-commerce platform’s partnership with Gmarket, launched in September 2025.
More than 800,000 products from South Korea can be bought via the Gmarket storefront on the Lazada app. Items are priced in Singapore dollars and come with English listings, making the products more accessible to Singapore consumers with relatively strong purchasing power.
According to James Chang, chief executive officer of South Korean online marketplace Gmarket, Singapore shoppers have one of South-east Asia’s highest spends per transaction, driven in part by electronics purchases, with Malaysia and the Philippines also among the top spenders.
During Lazada’s 6.6 sale on June 6, Gmarket’s average order value in Singapore jumped by 146 per cent compared with regular business periods – the highest increase in South-east Asia, where the regional average was 75 per cent.
Lazada is a subsidiary of Chinese multinational technology and e-commerce conglomerate Alibaba Group, while Gmarket is under a joint venture between South Korean retail conglomerate Shinsegae Group and Alibaba.
According to Lazada, the top-performing Gmarket categories in Singapore for March were beauty, led by Korean cosmetics and personal care products; sports shoes and apparel; and electronic items such as cameras and drones. The strong Singdollar made higher-value items like these attractive to shoppers.
Top-performing brands on Gmarket’s official store in Singapore during this period included sports apparel brands Lacoste and Puma, consumer electronics brand Sony, home appliance brand Cuckoo and make-up brand Clio.
Speaking to The Straits Times via a video call, Chang said Singapore shoppers on Gmarket’s storefront gravitate mostly towards beauty products, health products and supplements, and electronics, followed by confectionery and snacks, and fashion items.
Demand also extends to a diverse range of South Korean goods, such as glassware for soju and makgeolli, and metal tableware for cooking and eating Korean food.
Chang said demand for South Korean goods used to be driven by “hero products” – for example, a single standout item like a Samsung Galaxy phone – but local consumers now look for a much more diverse range of products, which he attributed to a growing cultural interest in and the adoption of South Korean culture.
The number of Singapore tourists visiting South Korea has been climbing steadily over the years. In the first five months of 2026, more than 165,000 Singaporeans travelled to South Korea, according to data from the Korea Tourism Data Lab by the Korea Tourism Organisation.
That is about 40 per cent of the almost 400,000 Singapore visitors to the country in 2025.
Also, the Singdollar has been gaining ground against the won. As at noon on July 10, 2026, one Singdollar could buy around 1,170 won, up from around 850 won in July 2021.
Chang said that making Korean products easier to access than what shoppers can find at local Korean supermarkets helps meet the demand for the broader range of goods.
The key, he said, is speed – what he calls “speed to market” in industry terms. He explained that products can now technically launch in South-east Asia within about a week of their South Korea debut via the app. Such a pace was difficult to achieve under the previous model, where cross-border sales relied on cross-border expert sellers navigating the process manually.
These expert sellers are typically merchants or businesses with knowledge of international trade laws that have the logistical, tax and cultural know-how to market and sell domestic goods worldwide.
The Lazada-Gmarket partnership lets South Korean sellers test overseas markets without a heavy upfront investment, said Chang.
Gmarket chief executive officer James Chang aims to connect South Korean sellers to shoppers in South-east Asia and beyond.
PHOTO: LAZADA
This gives them the option to take a more calculated next step – setting up stores and businesses in individual local markets – which adds significant value for them, he said.
Chang is currently tracking repeat purchase behaviour on Gmarket’s storefront, specifically, how often buyers return to make a second purchase within 30 days – a customer who buys twice within that window counts as generating two “purchase days”.
“When we have products that are available that get into the market, we want to make sure consumers are repeatedly purchasing some of them,” he said, adding that this helps businesses move beyond one-off transactions to build a lasting presence in South-east Asia.
