A sales rep tells you that if you take the larger opening order, you will be the only shop in your city carrying the brand. Six weeks later the pharmacy two streets away has the same serum in its window, from a different supplier, at a lower price. The rep explains that the pharmacy did not buy from them, so nothing was breached.
The rep is right. Exclusivity in Korean cosmetics is real at exactly one level: the contract between a brand and the company that imports its goods into the EU for a defined territory. Every offer made below that level is a promise about the seller's own behaviour, and most of the ones we hear about are not even that.
The short version
- Regulation (EU) 2022/720, applicable since 1 June 2022, lets a supplier reserve a territory for at most five distributors and restrict only active selling into it; passive sales in response to unsolicited orders cannot be blocked.
- Under Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 the importer of a cosmetic product is its EU responsible person (Article 4(5)) and that name and address must appear on every pack (Article 19(1)(a)), so the pack itself shows who holds a brand's EU import position.
- COSRX publishes its authorised sellers country by country on cosrx.com and states it cannot guarantee products bought outside those channels (page read 2 September 2026); a "sole distributor" claim for any country can be checked against a page like that in a minute.
Where exclusivity actually lives
Korean brands sell abroad through several channels at once: their own webshops, Korean export traders, marketplaces, and one or more importers per market. Only the brand-to-importer contract allocates a territory. A wholesaler that never signed one cannot pass on rights it never received, so city-level sub-exclusivity is a commercial promise and nothing more, worth exactly what the promising party controls.
Check the level in two moves. Read which entity is named as responsible person on the pack: Article 19(1)(a) of Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 requires that name and address on the container, and Article 4(5) makes the importer that person by default. Then open the brand's own seller list. The COSRX stores page names authorised sellers country by country and warns that it "cannot guarantee the safety or quality of any products purchased outside of official and authorized sales channels" (cosrx.com, read 2 September 2026). Beauty of Joseon publishes authorised online and offline retailers the same way, and its wholesale FAQ sends every partnership enquiry to a sales mailbox with no exclusivity terms in sight (beautyofjoseon.com, read 2 September 2026). If the brand lists eight sellers for your country, the eight already exist.
What the law allows, even for a real exclusive
Suppose the distributor really does hold a signed territory. Regulation (EU) 2022/720, the EU block exemption for vertical agreements, in force from 1 June 2022 until 31 May 2034, sets the limits.
Article 1(1)(h) defines an exclusive distribution system as one where the supplier allocates a territory to itself or to "a maximum of five buyers". Five. A brand can name five importers for Germany and call each of them exclusive.
Article 4(b) makes it a hardcore restriction to limit where a distributor may sell, with one exception that matters here: active sales into a territory reserved to the supplier or to up to five other exclusive distributors may be restricted. Active sales means visits, letters, emails, calls and targeted advertising aimed at customers there. Passive sales, defined as sales in response to unsolicited requests from individual customers, can never be blocked, and Article 4(e) adds that preventing the effective use of the internet to sell the goods is hardcore too. A contract that tries any of this loses the block exemption for the whole agreement.
So even a genuine exclusive importer cannot promise that no online seller in another country will ship the brand to your customers, because that shipment is a passive sale. What a supplier can offer is a territory nobody else will be actively recruited into, provided it holds the rights and sits under the 30 % market-share threshold of Article 3(1), which no K-beauty wholesaler in Europe comes near.
One more clause before signing. Article 5(1)(a) removes the exemption from any non-compete obligation "the duration of which is indefinite or exceeds 5 years". A distributor who grants city exclusivity in exchange for you stocking no competing Korean brands has to cap that at five years; cap it at one.
Why most exclusive offers are not
Four patterns come up in the offers buyers describe to us.
The letterhead is the wholesaler's. The offer carries the brand logo but no contract signed by the brand. Ask for the page of the brand agreement that defines the territory, numbers blacked out, or a one-line confirmation from the brand's own sales contact.
The territory has no edges. "Your area" or "your city", without postcodes, a term, or a description of what the distributor will refrain from. A workable clause reads: for 12 months from first delivery, we will not open a new retail account for [brand] within postcodes [list], and we will tell you in writing which accounts already exist there.
The exclusivity buys volume. The offer is tied to an opening order two or three times what you would normally place. That is a volume discount with a story on top. Decide on the discount alone.
Grey stock is the competitor anyway. The shop that undercuts you is often selling stock bought from a Korean trader and imported by someone else, which no contract of yours reaches. Article 6 of Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 does: it obliges every distributor to check the responsible person's name and address on the pack before selling, and goods that fail that check are a case for the market surveillance authority.
"Exclusive" in a wholesaler's price list, in our experience, most often means "we currently have nobody else in your town", which is true until it is not.
What a supplier can promise and keep
Three things, all about its own conduct: not to open another retail account within a defined area for a defined term; to tell you which accounts already exist there; and to give you first call on new lines and limited editions. Ask for exactly those, in the account terms, signed.
The rest of your protection comes from the assortment. A shop that carries a brand nobody else in the city has found yet, and carries it in depth, is harder to copy than a shop holding a letter. Finding brands before the chains do is a repeatable skill, how deep to go per brand decides whether the customer who saw the serum at the pharmacy still comes to you for the rest of the routine, and the six documents to request before a first order apply to an exclusive offer twice over.
The reply to send when exclusivity is offered
Copy this, fill in the brackets, send it before agreeing to the order size.
Subject: Exclusivity offer for [brand], [city]: five points before I decide
Hello [name],
Thank you for the offer of exclusivity on [brand] for [city]. I would like to take it up and need the following in writing first.
On what basis you hold rights to [brand] for [country]: the page of the brand's contract naming the territory, or a confirmation email from the brand's own sales contact. If neither is possible, please say so.
The exact territory in postcodes, and the term in months from first delivery.
What you commit to inside that territory: no new retail accounts for [brand], no active approaches to retailers there, and written notice of any account that already exists. Online orders from my area and the brand's own channels are outside your control, and I do not expect you to promise otherwise.
The minimum purchase per year, and what happens if I fall short: does the exclusivity lapse, or does the price change?
Whether anything is expected from me in return, such as not stocking competing brands, and for how long.
If you do not hold territory rights from the brand, I would still value a written commitment on point 3, priced as a normal volume discount.
Best regards, [name]
The decision rule: if point 1 comes back empty, keep the opening order at what you expect to sell within the term of the agreement. A promise about conduct earns your repeat orders and nothing up front.
Questions buyers ask
Can I get exclusive distribution directly from a Korean brand?
In principle yes, and it makes you the importer, which under Article 4(5) of Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 makes you the responsible person for every product you bring in: safety report, product information file, CPNP notification and your own address on every pack. Brands that entertain the conversation expect a volume plan and a marketing budget for the territory. For a single shop the compliance cost alone usually outweighs what exclusivity would earn.
Is an authorised distributor the same as an exclusive one?
No. Authorised means the brand permits that company to resell and will usually confirm it when asked; exclusive means the brand has agreed not to appoint others in a territory. A brand can have many authorised sellers in one country and no exclusive one at all. Ask which of the two words the supplier means, then ask the brand.
Can my supplier stop me selling online or to customers in another country?
Passive sales, no. Under Article 4(b) of Regulation (EU) 2022/720 a supplier can restrict active selling into a territory reserved for another exclusive distributor, and Article 4(e) forbids preventing the effective use of the internet to sell the goods, so a clause against fulfilling an unsolicited order from Munich when you sit in Vienna is a hardcore restriction. Labelling language for the country you sell into stays your job, and translating a label on your own initiative creates a notification duty under Article 13(3) of the cosmetics regulation.
Sources
- EUR-Lex, Commission Regulation (EU) 2022/720 on vertical agreements and concerted practices, 2022
- EUR-Lex, Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 on cosmetic products, 2009
- COSRX, Stores and authorised sellers, 2026
- Beauty of Joseon, Wholesale and partnerships FAQ, 2026
Both regulations were read on EUR-Lex and the brand pages on cosrx.com and beautyofjoseon.com on 2 September 2026. General information, not legal advice.
Wholesale prices unlock once your trade account is approved. Verification takes one to two working days.