#757 – Inside A 9-Figure K-Beauty Brand

Bradley Sutton takes the Serious Sellers Podcast on the road, and onto a moving rail bike in South Korea, for a conversation with Jenna, Global E-commerce Team Manager at TONYMOLY. Jenna shares how she went from studying law and working as a programmer to spending ten years raising her daughter, discovering e-commerce from home, and eventually building a successful international selling career. She began by reselling Korean sporting goods to US customers through eBay before shifting her attention to Amazon, where one business reached as much as $10,000 in monthly profit.

Her success during the pandemic earned her recognition from Amazon Korea and opened the door to managing accounts for other companies. Jenna has now used Helium 10 for approximately five years, and her favorite tool is the Xray Chrome Extension. She uses Xray while browsing Amazon to quickly review estimated sales, keywords, and Best Sellers Rank, helping her evaluate products and marketplace opportunities without leaving the search results. Today, she applies that experience at TONYMOLY, a 20-year-old K-beauty company generating approximately $163 million in annual sales.

Jenna also reveals an unusual long-term marketing strategy: targeting customers before they become the brand’s core buyers. If current anti-aging customers are between 40 and 50, her team may create content for women closer to 35, building awareness years before the need becomes urgent. TONYMOLY and its newer brand, BONCEPT, also use TikTok and Meta to drive product discovery, while positioning Amazon as the more attractive place to complete the purchase. The company supports these strategies through close collaboration between its e-commerce, sales, and R&D teams, allowing it to respond quickly to fast-moving beauty trends.

From emerging ingredients such as PDRN, retinol, and retinal to the use of AI for copywriting, images, videos, and English-language content, this episode offers a fascinating look at how a global beauty company combines marketplace data, creative storytelling, and product innovation. Jenna’s journey proves that starting small does not limit where e-commerce can take you. By continuing to learn, adapting when marketplaces change, and understanding customers before competitors do, sellers can turn an unexpected opportunity into a truly global career.

In episode 757 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Jenna discuss:

• 00:00 – Introduction
• 01:28 – Meet Jenna From TONYMOLY
• 02:38 – From Law And Programming To E-Commerce
• 03:34 – Starting A Home-Based eBay Business
• 05:55 – Moving From eBay To Amazon
• 07:52 – Reaching $10,000 In Monthly Profit
• 09:59 – Winning An Amazon Korea Competition
• 10:38 – Five Years Using Helium 10
• 10:46 – Why Xray Is Her Favorite Tool
• 11:28 – Managing Global E-Commerce For TONYMOLY
• 14:17 – Launching The New BONCEPT Brand
• 16:11 – Expanding K-Beauty Across Amazon Europe
• 17:58 – Targeting Customers Five Years Early
• 20:17 – Using TikTok To Drive Amazon Sales
• 22:00 – How R&D And E-Commerce Work Together
• 23:52 – Retinol, Retinal, And PDRN Trends
• 27:27 – Using AI For Global Content Creation

Transcript

Bradley Sutton:

Today, we’re taking the show on the road to interview a nine-figure K beauty brand in Korea, which has unique strategies such as targeting their customers years before they make a purchase. And maybe for the first time in the history of podcasts, the first part of this episode was filmed on a moving rail bike. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think.

Bradley Sutton:

Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Series Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I’m your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that’s a completely BS-free, organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. All right, guys, this is a first. I am actually here on a rail bike here in Nami Island, Korea, where I am pedaling like a madman on this rail bike. And we are doing a podcast interview with somebody from a Korean beauty company while we’re pedaling like crazy. So we’re going to see if this kind of format works. For those watching on YouTube, it’s a much better watch. Make sure to check out the Series Sellers Podcast channel on YouTube. But maybe this will be something I do in the future, where I go visit the different brands out there, and if they have some interesting tour, we’re going to do it. So anyways, who we have here, why don’t you introduce yourself?

Jenna:

Hi, I’m Jenna.

Bradley Sutton:

And Jenna, what is the company you work for?

Jenna:

I work for Tony Moly, K-beauty company.

Bradley Sutton:

All right, let’s get her background story, as we usually do first. Where were you born and raised?

Jenna:

I was born in Busan.

Bradley Sutton:

Busan, as in train to Busan?

Jenna:

Yes, yes.

Bradley Sutton:

Is there any zombies there?

Jenna:

No, no zombies.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. All right. So where did you go to university?

Jenna:

I go to university in Seoul. UI Women’s University.

Bradley Sutton:

What did you major in over there?

Jenna:

My major was law.

Bradley Sutton:

Oh, so you wanted to become a lawyer?

Jenna:

Yes, I was. I did, but I failed.

Bradley Sutton:

So you didn’t finish it, or did you get the law degree?

Jenna:

I got a degree, but I failed. I didn’t pass the exam to be a lawyer.

Bradley Sutton:

Were your parents very disappointed?

Jenna:

Yes, of course. But I knew that I’m not interested in law anymore, so I changed my career. I started my first career as a programmer. After that, I took a break from work for 10 years to raise my daughter. So after that, I started the global e-commerce.

Bradley Sutton:

Why did you decide your first thing to get back into the working world was going to be e-commerce?

Jenna:

While I was taking care of my daughter, I started thinking about what I could do from home. That’s when I learned global e-commerce.

Bradley Sutton:

So when you first got into e-commerce, what was it? Was it a Korean website like .com company, or how did you get into it?

Jenna:

I sold products on eBay.

Bradley Sutton:

eBay in Korea?

Jenna:

No, eBay in the U.S.

Bradley Sutton:

What kind of products did you sell?

Jenna:

I sold all kinds of sporting goods.

Bradley Sutton:

And is this just for your company or just by yourself from your house, or what?

Jenna:

I bought all the products by myself. So I sold the brand products by myself.

Bradley Sutton:

So you bought in Korea and then you got it in your apartment or house and then shipped it to the U.S.? Yes, of course.

Jenna:

I did it.

Bradley Sutton:

And what did you get sales to every month? What kind of sales and profit did that get you?

Jenna:

My profit was above the salaryman. At that time, eBay was so good, so I earned a lot of money on eBay. And after that, I moved to Amazon.

Speaker 4

About what year did you move to Amazon?

Jenna:

Two years ago, the pandemic. Yes, I started both sites at the same time. But when I started e-commerce, Amazon was not attractive for me. eBay is easier than Amazon, so I can get money from eBay. But when Amazon started worldwide pre-shipping to eBay, my eBay sales fell down and I moved to Amazon. I thought Amazon had more opportunity.

Bradley Sutton:

Going back to your history, you were doing eBay, and then what year did you make the switch to Amazon?

Jenna:

Maybe five years after I moved to Amazon.

Bradley Sutton:

What was the actual year you started selling on Amazon?

Jenna:

I started in 2017, both Amazon and eBay. At the first time, I focused on eBay and I moved to Amazon. Maybe, I’m not sure, two years before the pandemic, from 2022, eBay and Amazon. But I seriously moved to Amazon in 2020.

Bradley Sutton:

And so in 2020, when you got serious about Amazon only, what was the first product you were selling?

Jenna:

I sold the cosmetic items. 

Bradley Sutton:

Private label? 

Jenna:

Yes, private label.

Bradley Sutton:

How did you find the factory?

Jenna:

Actually, that item was private label, but I can get the item from one of my customers. So they provide all the rights for selling brand. So I can register brand on Amazon and I can sell private label. The brand is not… I didn’t have the brand, but I can get all the rights to use the brand. So I registered brand on Amazon by myself. So I run all the brand store and I launched that brand on Amazon.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. And in your first full year of Amazon, how much sales did you have?

Jenna:

At the first year, that was not a big sales. But finally, I got $10,000 per month. The max profit was $10,000.

Speaker 4

Sales or profit?

Jenna:

Profit, yes.

Speaker 4

So what was gross sales?

Jenna:

Oh, I can’t remember exactly. Maybe 20?

Bradley Sutton:

So you were making almost 50% profit?

Jenna:

Yes, from 50 and 20% of profit, yes.

Bradley Sutton:

This is very interesting what we are passing. There’s like some bottles here in the glass and there’s pods. All right. I like this kind of podcast. So at this time, like 2020, did you just stop selling on eBay and only focus on Amazon?

Jenna:

Yes. Because as you know, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Amazon sales increased rapidly. So also one of my products I worked on became the best seller.

Speaker 4

So it was a cosmetics product?

Jenna:

No, no, no. Just mask for COVID-19 mask. So, I sold a lot of items. Someday I woke up and I saw the list, all the lists I can check.

Bradley Sutton:

Hold on. I have to show this sign. Just a moment. Watch out for snakes and bees. I don’t think during a podcast, I have ever had to watch out for snakes and bees. Please continue and don’t worry. I’ll watch out for the snakes and bees.

Jenna:

Yes. During the pandemic, I earned a lot of money on eBay. Also, I got a prize from Amazon Korea, some kind of challenge. So I won the first prize. So some companies asked me to handle their Amazon account. So I started my business for the Amazon agency. So I had to run my own business.

Bradley Sutton:

What year did you discover Helium 10?

Jenna:

I’ve been using Helium 10 for five years. Yes.

Bradley Sutton:

What’s your favorite Helium 10 tool?

Jenna:

I really like X-Ray Chrome extension because it’s too easy to find information when I’m searching the product on Amazon. I can check the keywords and sales and bestseller ranking. When I’m using Chrome, I can use X-Ray at the same time.

Bradley Sutton:

Alright we’ve gone to another place in Korea now. We are in this Italy kind of place where a lot of K dramas have been filmed. Back to the questions. We were talking about Helium 10 X-Ray. And just fast forward to now, what is your job in Amazon?

Jenna:

I work as a global e-commerce team manager at a KBT company, Tony Moly.

Bradley Sutton:

Tony Moly. So this is a brand that I actually did some of their first Amazon listings years ago. For those who might not have heard the brand, how long has it been around? Give some history of the brand. What is the public information as far as how much they have sales overall year by year?

Jenna:

My company is 20 years old company. And our average sales is 163 million per year.

Bradley Sutton:

163 million dollars per year. That is a lot of money. One of the original K-beauty brands out there. And where’s the most of the products sold? Obviously, that’s not Amazon. But is it offline in all of young kind of stores in Korean websites? Where’s the majority of that sales coming from?

Jenna:

The majority is the offline in Korea. So many old fans love our products.

Bradley Sutton:

Now, with all of your experience on Amazon, what has changed the most, do you think, over the last few years? Like something that now it’s made it a little bit more difficult.

Jenna:

Yes, the Amazon policy changed so often. So I need to follow and understand what changed on Amazon. So we have to follow their policy to activate our listing and sell better on Amazon. That’s the most difficult thing on Amazon.

Bradley Sutton:

Like what’s an example? Like why did you pick that as the most important? Like what is something that really affected sellers or yourself over the last few years?

Jenna:

Because they have the strict policy for the skin beauty. Now, we have to get approval from FDA or other California warning. We have to put the label on our products. So a lot of regulations, we have to do that. So if we miss that policy, our listing will be deactivated.

Bradley Sutton:

Now, you guys are launching a new brand on Amazon. It’s something you’re selling offline, too. What is the name of this brand? And what’s the reason why a company like Tony Moly, it’s such a well-known, why start a new brand?

Jenna:

Our new brand name is Boncept.

Speaker 4

How do you spell that?

Jenna:

B-O-N-C-E-P-T, Boncept. Boncept brand has the anti-aging line, anti-aging products and PDRM products. Our company wants to spread to more people with reasonable price and with good quality. So our new brand’s products are very effective for anti-aging. And we try to make the products effective and have very good materials and with reasonable price. Yes.

Bradley Sutton:

But what’s the reason why not just launch these products in Tony Moly brand?

Jenna:

Actually, at the first time, we started this brand with a Korean Daiso mall. Daiso mall managers asked us a new brand. They need more popular products with a new brand. So we started with a new brand for the reason.

Bradley Sutton:

Now, it’s interesting for any company out there that never has sold in Amazon USA or Amazon Europe, sometimes when you have a popular brand from back home, you can actually be pretty popular in other countries even without much effort. I think you were telling me that in Amazon UK and Amazon Germany for the Tony Moly brand, you are not even doing advertising yet, right?

Jenna:

Right.

Bradley Sutton:

What is your Amazon yearly sales?

Jenna:

Our Amazon Europe sales is multiple six-figure sales.

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah, so I think we can do that even higher, make it multiple seven figures. That’s what our goal is going to be for this. It shows the power of when you have a popular brand or ability to source a brand that’s not sold in another country. This was kind of like my model back in the days when I would import Korean products. And all of the people who visited Korea and who knew these products or Korean people living in the USA, they were searching for this. So it’s a good way to be able to make money off of a brand. But now you’re learning a different kind because this new brand, not many people know about. And so this is going to be like a case study over the next year or so, Helium 10 helping them to launch this new brand on Amazon US and also seeing how we can increase the sales of the Tony Moly in Europe by opening up advertising and things like that. What kind of unique strategies do you think you’re doing or that you’ve done in the past? Maybe not at Tony Moly, maybe it is there or at your previous jobs that you think not every seller is doing, something that has given you an advantage, do you think?

Jenna:

I think my main strategy is to fix our persona. And I will focus on making the proper contents to persuade buyers.

Bradley Sutton:

How do you do that? How do you define your persona of who your buyer is?

Jenna:

I analyze the buyer’s age and the reason and the female or male. And I analyze the data in selling data in Korea and in the US. So if the average age is fixed, we try to make it lower a little bit, five years lower than the data. So we make the contents with that age female using our products. So beautiful, beautiful woman using our products. And I think the most important thing is to make buyers imagine how they use our products and how our products affect on their face.

Bradley Sutton:

So are you saying that, let’s say you notice that your buyers are from the age of 40 to 50, you actually try and cater your marketing strategy as if it was 35 years old, are you saying?

Jenna:

Yes, yes.

Bradley Sutton:

Why is that?

Jenna:

Because our main product is anti-aging. So young people don’t need our product. So we are focusing on that age buyers.

Bradley Sutton:

And then it’s like, so you’re getting exposed to your future customers early. So it’s kind of like a long term, long term play. Any other unique strategies you think you’re doing?

Jenna:

I’m using the outbound market, I mean, Meta or TikTok. We are trying to make viral on that place. So we need to make buyers to buy on Amazon. So if we risk a higher price on TikTok shop and most of buyers check the price on Amazon and other places and they will choose the reasonable price. Because as you know, the TikTok shops, the cost is higher than Amazon. So we are trying to send our buyers to Amazon.

Bradley Sutton:

A huge company like Tony Moly, I imagine there’s many different departments. You’re doing e-commerce, TikTok, Amazon. Maybe you have one department that focuses on Korean online sales, another department that focuses on offline sales, and another department that focuses on R&D and things. Once you get to a company that size, how does everybody work together? I know you guys aren’t working just, oh, you never talk to other departments. But how do you guys work together to reach the goals? Or is like, do the R&D people ask you, hey, is there some new product we need to develop? Are you organizing marketing strategies with the offline? Talk a little bit about that.

Jenna:

Actually, last week, we had a meeting with the R&D and sales. We regularly have a meeting to share our next product plan. And we are thinking about how we can sell, how we can make proper products to make more sales. We want to make buyers satisfied with our products. So we are always thinking about which products can be helpful for buyers or which products is trend, which product is trend these days. Because as you know, the beauty category is changing so fast. We have to catch the trend to make new product.

Bradley Sutton:

All right. Let’s talk about something related to your company, but has nothing to do with e-commerce. Let’s say I’m somebody who’s listening. And maybe I’m a woman who’s around 40. I’m starting to worry about aging. Or I’m a man who has a girlfriend or wife who’s getting to that age. And I want to know what is a good Korean kind of like beauty routine. So what kind of products are the hottest to get for somebody to start thinking about Korean beauty if they’ve never been buying these products before?

Jenna:

These days, there are a lot of effective products in Korea and in the world. But some products, for example, retinol is very effective.

Bradley Sutton:

Retinol?

Speaker 4

What does that do?

Jenna:

Oh, the anti-aging and lifting or something. That retinol is very famous for anti-aging and strengthen your skin these days. Retinol is too strong material. So some people don’t feel good after using it. But the material is very effective. More effective than retinol.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, so retinol is a good place to start. Something I just see everywhere now that I didn’t see maybe a few years ago is PDRN. What is that? And is it something that is a good gift or that people should start using?

Jenna:

PDRN is good material, good products. So many companies launched PDRN products these days. Also, I use PDRN. The most popular keyword on TikTok is glassy skin. So if I apply it on my skin, I can see the kind of lightening. I can feel that right now. Also, I can feel my skin is stronger than before. PDRN is very popular in Korea. And I think PDRN products is getting popular in the U.S. too.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, so Good Start Retinol, Korean Retinol, Korean PDRN. Are both of these available from the new brand that you have? And also, one more. So if somebody wants to buy a pack of three, if they’re just getting started in K-Beauty, Retinol, PDRN, what’s the third product?

Jenna:

Retinal, PDRN, and Retinol. I recommend Retinol products. Retinol products have less side effects compared to Retinal. The effective effect is a little bit less than Retinal. If you are a beginner with anti-aging products, Retinol is the best product.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, so in case you didn’t get that, guys, that’s Retinol. R-E-T-I-N-O-L and R-E-T-I-N-A-L. Retinol is two different products. And then PDRN. All of these are available from Boncept. B-O-N-C-E-P-T, like concept with a B. And so check this out, guys. Be watching our content soon for this case study we’re going to do. We’re going to try and bring Tony Moly brand up in Europe. We’re going to try and get the Boncept sales up. Last question for you is, how is your team, if at all, using AI now in your business?

Jenna:

In my team, we are using AI for making the copywriting or the image content or the video content. We have to let more buyers discover our products on the website. So we are focusing on making a lot of contents on the social media. Also, if we use AI, we can save time to make imaginary things so we can find good sentences. Because we are not the native speakers, so we cannot understand which sentence is weird or strange. But AI can help us to make more easy and acceptable sentence for buyers.

Bradley Sutton:

All right, well, from Seoul, Korea, and many different cities as we’ve been around here, thank you, Jenna, for your time. And guys, I look forward to this concept where we take local tours from local brands and visit their country while we learn about their Amazon history. We’ll see you guys in the next episode.

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