What you should consider when buying K-Pop Albums

Translation missing: en.pagefly.article.by_authorJul 22, 2021

What You Should Consider When Buying K-Pop

Author: Janina Sauer / Jul 22, 2021

When purchasing the increasingly popular K-Pop albums and associated merch items, there are a few things you should pay attention to to avoid disappointment. Because where can you get the album you want at a fair price, undamaged and quickly?

This is probably nothing new for long-standing K-pop fans, but for newcomers to the world of K-pop it is often a challenge.

What are Hanteo and Gaon Charts? What is the difference and what role do they play? Where is the largest selection of albums and where can you order safely and duty-free? You can find out all of this here.

The most important things in brief

Factors. When purchasing, you should consider the following points: selection, customs duties, shipping costs, customer communication and shipping.
Options. When purchasing you have the following options: music stores, shops in Korea, Amazon & eBay as well as online shops for the European market.
Nolae . Nolae is a German online shop that promises uncomplicated purchasing and a large selection of K-Pop items, with good customer communication.
Charts. The so-called Hanteo and the Gaon Chart play a major role in the K-Pop world. Both album charts take units of physical recordings into account, but look at them from different perspectives.

Where can you get K-Pop products and what do you have to consider?

When looking for K-Pop products, there are various options for getting the album you want. We'll show you what you should consider when buying and what advantages and disadvantages the different options have.

Music stores

K-pop albums are usually not that easy to find - they are usually not available in regular music stores and it is difficult to find the album you want at a fair price even in specialty stores. In addition, there is only a small selection in Germany, which is why fans are increasingly leaning towards other options.

Shops in Korea

An alternative to regular music stores would be to order from a Korean shop. Here the selection is much larger, but unfortunately there are a few pitfalls here too. On the one hand, the shipping costs are relatively high - sometimes almost higher than the actual product costs. Another hurdle is the customs fees. When importing from Korea to Germany, there are no customs fees whatsoever for a purchase price including shipping costs of €22. However, from 22 € you will be charged 19% import sales tax. From €150 onwards, additional customs fees apply depending on the type of goods. In addition, customer communication is usually a little more complicated. Shipping also takes a little longer and there is a risk that the package could be lost.

Amazon & eBay

Of course there is also the option to order via Amazon or eBay. You can mainly find older albums and special editions on eBay. However, used albums from private sellers may be missing the popular photo cards or something similar. Another drawback is that the products when purchased via Amazon often arrive damaged to the customer. Here too, customer communication is not always ideal.

Online shops for the European market

Due to some difficulties that the other options present, there are more and more online shops for the European market that specialize in the import and distribution of K-Pop products.

This is where Nolae comes in!

Benefits of Nolae

We noticed how difficult it is to get K-Pop products in Europe. Our mission is therefore to make it easy for all K-Pop fans to purchase so that no stan is disappointed.

We import directly from Korea and can therefore offer you a great deal
Offer selection
Our Korean partners are all Hanteo Family members, yours
The purchase is therefore taken into account in the evaluation
At Nolae we also try to respond to individual product requests and offer various K-Drama OST
CDs that are not available in other shops, for example.
You don't have to worry about hidden costs or dubious service providers - you only pay them
Price you can find on our site

Our packages are always sent well protected so that your products arrive undamaged
Nolae offers customer service via both email and social media - no
Question remains unanswered!

But what exactly are the different charts all about? And what role do they play in the purchase of K-Pop products.

The relevance of the charts

The so-called Hanteo and the Gaon Chart play a major role in the K-Pop world and it is extremely important to fans that their order is included in the evaluation. Both album charts take units of physical recordings into account, but look at them from different perspectives. But what exactly is the difference?

Hanteo Chart

In contrast to the Gaon Chart, the Hanteo Chart is a “real-time chart”. The counting takes place in real time and not cumulatively over a certain period of time. The chart obtains its data from Hanteo-certified stores, which report their actual sales to the end customer. This data is also included in the rating of the weekly music shows.

However, the results are not accessible to everyone, as no complete results are published. To access the complete results, you need a “Korean Social Security Number” and a paid membership with Hanteo. However, you can also find a general overview here without a membership.

Gaon Chart

The Gaon Chart was initiated in 2010 and provides an insight into the weekly best-selling songs and music albums in South Korea, which are included in the year-end evaluation - in the calculations of the award shows.

The Korea Music Content Industry Association sources the data used from the largest online shops and stores in South Korea. The chart refers to the sales figures of distributors worldwide, but these are often revised downwards due to returns from resellers if they were unable to sell the singles or albums.

The Gaon Chart is similar to the US Billboards. The Gaon Chart also has its own awards show, the “Gaon Chart Music Awards”.

You can find the results here .

Now things should be a little clearer for newbies too!

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