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Personal beauty consultants target young women

Personal beauty consultants, or “bangmun panmae eonnie” in Korean, are rushing to win over the younger generation of 20- and 30-somethings seeking to get the best deals in an era of social networks and mobile communication.

Office worker Park Soo-min is a big fan of purchasing cosmetics from door-to-door salespeople. She has purchased more than 20 cosmetics products from her long-acquainted personal counselor. When the bottles run out, all she needs to do is send a message to her counselor on Kakao Talk.

“It is very convenient, since I don’t need to visit a department store or log into some online shopping website to buy a product. When I pick an item, my cosmetics counselor directly sends it to my home,” the 26-year-old told The Korea Herald.

The door-to-door sales strategy in Korean cosmetics has been traditionally focused on women in their 40s and 50s who want to buy cosmetics at an affordable price. But the trend has spread to younger women who‘d like to talk with beauty salespeople to get both discounted cosmetics and additional consultation services.

“Every consultant of our company provides one-on-one beauty counseling to customers via a mobile chat application. For busy workers, we visit their office at lunch time,” said an official from cosmetics company AmorePacific.

The best part about ordering cosmetics through personal beauty consultants, Park says, is a bundle of bonus cosmetic samples that come with the original order.

“Last month, I ordered one 40,000 won ($35) sunblock, and 70 free samples worth 230,000 won came with it. Thanks to my consultant, I can save a whole sum of money,” said Park.

First introduced by cosmetics company AmorePacific, more than 53,000 Korean women are currently engaged in the personal beauty consultanting business.

By Park Sui, Intern reporter
(suipark@heraldcorp.com)