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Korean affiliate products?

by earlgray
10 replies
I live in Seoul, Korea (I'm American btw)

I've noticed on clickbank and other affiliate sites, there are no Korean language products. I've also noticed that IM is almost non-existent here...

Am I sitting on an effing gold mine or what?

I don't speak Korean well enough to make any products myself. I do know it well enough to build sites and promote the heck out of it if I found some.

Any help on this?
#affiliate #korean #products
  • Profile picture of the author Daikon
    Hmm, could be. Or it could be an issue with credit cards. What percentage of people use credit cards in Korea? Are they reluctant to use them online? Japanese are very hesitant to use their credit cards online and even though Japan is the world's 3rd largest economy, many people still don't have credit cards. I'm curious what the situation is Korea. Let us know?

    Regardless of whether online credit card use is widespread, I'm sure there is a certain demographic that are searching for products to buy online, it's just a matter of reaching them. I think the way to differentiate yourself from other affiliates would be to advertise in Korean if you aren't already. If your Korean is not up to it, you might consider outsourcing some keyword translation to a Korean outsourcer on fivver, odesk or any of the main outsourcing sites. This could indeed lead to big sales. While other affiliates may have fine tuned their ad campaigns already in English, you might be the first to advertise in Korean for any particular affiliate product. Less competition = cheaper advertising costs. Good luck!
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  • Profile picture of the author majestyk
    Hi earlygray,

    I think you are from South Korea. Because As I know, North Korea still has intranet, no internet! But South Korea has the fastest internet in the world. If there is no Korean affiliate marketing website in South Korea, you can start up your own affiliate marketing website. I have live example from my home country (Turkey). One of my friends started his own business without any programming or prior experience. He found a web programmer and built up first Turkish affiliate website. Now he has more than 50 products on his website with more than 40.000 active users. As he said, his net profit for last month was 17.000 TL, about 9.000 USD.
    So if there is no competition, you can think it over.
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    • Profile picture of the author tukmax
      Hey Earlgray,

      One good program that I suggest is iherb.
      You know them? They are a great supplement/vitamin online order company.

      Are you teaching English in Korea? Because I did that from 2009-2011. I was in Seoul (near Seoul National University) for one year and Daejeon for another.

      Anyways I used iherb to get my supplements and they deliver to Korea super fast! I would order on a Sunday and the following Wed/Thurs it would be at my desk at work. They are really a great company.

      Their affiliate program gives you a discount coupon which gets people $8 off their first order of $40 or more and $5 off less than orders of $40. They actually just raised it to $8 from $5. You get 4% off the order total for the level one customers you refer, and then 3%, 2%, 1% on the other levels of people you refered who refer other people from you.
      I've made about $1300 so far. Nice little bonus to my other side businesses I have going on.

      So what to do in Korea? Well I had some good ideas but I never got around to doing them, but I'm sure they would work. My ideas were to print out fliers with your discount code and hand them out at gyms/fitness centers in Seoul. You could even hire an ajjuma to give out fliers for you in front of a bus/subway station.

      The good thing about iherb is that they have a KOREAN language version of the website, plus amazing prices for AMERICAN products (which koreans just eat up, as you already probably know) and super fast shipping. And, let's face it, korean suppliments are super expensive and not very good. You can offer koreans a cheaper, better alternative to the growing health and fitness market in korea.

      I'm sure you could make a lot of cash doing this. Iherb has great sample promotional posters you could print up with some hanguel on it. get a korean friend to help with the translation. Also, with the very group minded focus of the korean people it means they refer their friends and family using your codes! I'm getting lots of new sign ups now even though I haven't done any advertising for it in a long time.


      One more thing though. The first time you sign up and place an order they will ask you for a referal code to save $8. Would you mind using mine? It is KOR909


      It wont have any negative impact on you and it will gain us both extra comission. If you do this I will gladly help you via PM in anyway I can. I can suggest more places in Seoul I know to market iherb and a few other ideas I had.

      In short, I wish I had done it while i was there. Unfortunately I sort of came up with the idea after. i even thought about doing a 2-3 week business trip to Korea just to flyer/promote the products.

      Let me know what you think and i'll help with questions one on one!

      cheers
      tukmax
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      • Profile picture of the author earlgray
        tukmax

        Great to hear from you. I don't have enough posts yet to make pms, but if you send me your email through pm, we can talk more about this.

        Yes I teach English. Have been here since 2007! But just started IM and finding side sources of income that weren't private tutoring jobs.

        I'm going to look into the iherb deal a bit more. I use them a lot actually, but didn't know they had an affiliate program. I could definitely do a little leg work by spreading some flyers around.

        Send me a pm and maybe we can work on some things together. I'm going to be here another 6 months at least. Plenty of time to make a few extra SeJongs.
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      • Profile picture of the author sokapo
        other store along the lines of Iherb is Health designs
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  • Profile picture of the author YasirYar
    Does S. Korea have an online buying culture? I have noticed that in a LOT of countries, people are just not willing to buy things on the internet, either due to lack of trust or lack of credit card.

    I am not sure about South Korea in particular, but if you feel people would buy a product online, you can always hire someone who is more fluent in the language to design something for you to promote and sell.

    There is definitely a LOT less competition promoting to non-English speaking countries, and while the markets might be smaller, you're right - it is a potential goldmine.


    Good luck!
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  • Profile picture of the author earlgray
    Yasir, buying online is huge here. There is an online store called Gmarket that literally, every Korean I know shops on. Getting an ad for a product on there would get tens of thousands of clicks a day. But finding a Korean language product to put there is the down side.

    There are some products on CB I think could do well (green tea health, skin whitening products, fashion design books) but they're in English. Most Koreans don't speak English that well. It sounds dirty and scammy, probably illegal, but I was thinking of buying one of these products, then paying a Korean to translate it all. I could build the ebook and page for it and then just start selling it myself. I don't know about the ethics on that though?
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    • Profile picture of the author YasirYar
      Originally Posted by earlgray View Post

      Yasir, buying online is huge here. There is an online store called Gmarket that literally, every Korean I know shops on. Getting an ad for a product on there would get tens of thousands of clicks a day. But finding a Korean language product to put there is the down side.

      There are some products on CB I think could do well (green tea health, skin whitening products, fashion design books) but they're in English. Most Koreans don't speak English that well. It sounds dirty and scammy, probably illegal, but I was thinking of buying one of these products, then paying a Korean to translate it all. I could build the ebook and page for it and then just start selling it myself. I don't know about the ethics on that though?

      It would probably be frowned upon. Why don't you try paying someone to write brand new content for you in Korean?

      If you believe there is a lot of earning potential, I would strongly recommend getting completely unique content to sell. I'm sure it wouldn't cost too much to get someone to make a product for you.

      If you're one of the first to do so, then I agree fully, this could be a potential goldmine in a country where people do spend online.
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      • Profile picture of the author Daikon
        Originally Posted by YasirYar View Post

        It would probably be frowned upon. .
        That's the understatement of the year. Stealing is stealing.

        Earlgray, your reluctance to do something like that is your conscience talking. Don't take this as a lecture. Legal issues aside, you already recognize that stealing someones' content is unethical or you wouldn't have brought it up.

        Doing your own research, drawing from various sources and creating your own product would be more work, but clearly doable and the right thing to do.

        You might also consider doing a joint venture with a product creator. Listen to episode 2 of Clickbank's podcast to hear about how they facilitate these kind of joint ventures between creators and international affiliates. You don't have to strike one of these deal through Clickbank though. There's nothing stopping you from contacting a product creator directly and trying to work out a deal.
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  • Profile picture of the author tukmax
    hey earlgray,

    I also don't have enough posts to make a pm yet either. haha.
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