Die Produktdaten, die Sie benötigen, um K-Beauty-Produkte online zu listen

29 June 2026 · The Glow Trade

The pallet is in, the shop is built, and the supplier's "product export" turns out to be a spreadsheet with a Korean title, a price and a link to a 400 pixel image someone saved from the brand's Instagram. Forty SKUs go live that weekend on that basis. By Monday the marketplace has rejected six barcodes, the ingredient field is empty on every listing, and the photo shows a pack in Korean that does not match the over-labelled unit the customer will unbox.

Listing data is the part of a wholesale order nobody prices, and it is where the first online season stalls. We see the same three gaps every time: ingredients that exist only as a photo, EANs that do not survive contact with a marketplace, and images nobody has the right to use.

The short version

Directive 98/6/EC requires the selling price and the unit price (per litre or kilogram) on every consumer offer, so a listing needs the net content in ml or g before it can be priced legally.
GS1's GTIN Management Standard requires a new barcode number whenever the declared net content, the declared formulation or the primary brand on the pack changes; a translation sticker changes none of these.
Amazon's product image guide (read 2 September 2026) requires a pure white background, the product filling at least 85 percent of the frame, and 1,000 pixels on the longest side for zoom; a brand's marketing image rarely passes.

What a listing needs before it can go live

Per SKU, in text, not embedded in a picture: brand, product line, variant, net content, the function of the product, the full ingredient list in INCI order, the shelf life rule (a best-before date or a period-after-opening in months), any warnings from the pack, the responsible person's name and address, the barcode number, unit dimensions and weight, and at least one image that shows the unit you actually ship.

Two of those come from EU law rather than from the platform. The net content feeds the unit price that Directive 98/6/EC makes mandatory alongside the selling price. The ingredient list is on the pack under Article 19(1)(g) of Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 anyway, and customers with allergies will ask for it online; typing it out from a photo of a 50 ml tube is an afternoon per twenty SKUs, which is why it is the field most often left blank.

Dimensions and weight look like admin until the courier module quotes shipping on them. A supplier who cannot tell you the weight of a unit usually cannot tell you the carton count either, and that is a stock problem before it is a data problem.

What suppliers rarely provide, and why

Most Korean brands publish product pages, not product data. A wholesaler who imports from a dozen of them holds whatever their sales reps sent: a price list, a stock file, sometimes a folder of renders. The INCI list as text, the English translation of the function, the PAO, the carton dimensions and the batch-to-expiry logic are usually missing because nobody upstream needed them in that form.

The gap that costs money is claims. Korean packaging and marketing copy is written for Korean law, where "whitening" and "wrinkle improvement" are approved functional categories. In the EU, Commission Regulation (EU) No 655/2013 requires every cosmetic claim to meet six common criteria, evidential support among them, and the responsible person is the one who has to hold the proof. Copying the Korean bullet points into your description transfers a claim you cannot substantiate onto your listing. Our rule: use the function, the texture and the ingredients, and drop any sentence that promises a result.

If you buy through a dropship feed you inherit all of this untouched, which is one reason the dropship-or-stock decision is really a decision about who owns the product data.

EANs and where they go wrong

A Korean retail unit normally carries a 13-digit EAN starting with 880, the prefix GS1 assigns to its Korean member organisation. That number is global; you do not need a European one to sell the product here. Four things break in practice.

The number on the price list is not the number on the pack. Korean brands renew packaging often. Under the GS1 GTIN Management Standard a new number is required when the declared net content, the declared formulation or the primary brand changes, so most renewals keep the number, but export editions and sets frequently do not. Scan a physical unit from the lot before you trust a spreadsheet.

Case codes arrive as unit codes. A 14-digit number, or a 13-digit one that scans on the outer carton only, identifies the case. Listing it sells one carton at the unit price.

Numbers starting with 2 are not real EANs. GS1 reserves the 200 to 299 range for restricted circulation numbers, the ones shops print for their own scales and shelves. A supplier whose "EAN" column starts with 2 has generated internal codes, and every marketplace will reject them.

Marketplaces check the registry. Amazon validates GTINs against GS1's database and treats a number whose registered brand does not match the listed brand as invalid. Genuine Korean numbers pass; supplier-invented ones and unregistered "bulk barcode" purchases do not, and the account gets flagged. The details differ by platform, which is its own article.

One thing the number does not do: prove origin. GS1 states that the prefix identifies where the company registered, not where the product was made.

Where product images come from, and who owns them

The question buyers type is where to get product images from a wholesaler. The answer is that most wholesalers cannot lawfully give you what they send. The photograph on a brand's site is a copyrighted work; Article 2 of Directive 2001/29/EC reserves the reproduction right to its owner. Buying a carton of the goods gives you the right to resell them and to name the brand while doing so, because trade mark rights are exhausted once the brand puts the goods on the EEA market under Article 15 of Regulation (EU) 2017/1001. It gives you no licence to the picture. A wholesaler forwarding images it saved from the brand's page is passing on a liability, not an asset.

Three routes hold up:

The brand's own asset kit, with terms. Some Korean brands run a press or partner download with a written licence. Ask your supplier whether the brand issued one and whether the licence extends to sub-distributors. If the answer is a Google Drive link with no terms, that is not a licence.
A written sub-licence from the supplier. Only a supplier who is the brand's contracted distributor can grant this, and it should say so in one sentence on the invoice or in an email you keep.
Your own packshots. A light tent, a phone and a white sheet cover most of a K-beauty catalogue, and the result shows the EU-labelled unit the customer will receive, which no brand render does. Amazon's guide wants a white background, the product at 85 percent of the frame and 1,000 pixels on the long side; shoot at 2,000 and crop.

Korean-language packshots on a European listing also trigger returns. The customer ordered what the picture showed, and the sticker on the back of the delivered unit looks like tampering to someone who has never seen one.

The per-SKU listing sheet

Send this as the header row of a spreadsheet with your purchase order and make completion a condition of the order confirmation. Twenty-two columns, one row per SKU:

brand | product_line | variant_or_shade | ean_on_unit | ean_on_case | units_per_case
net_content_value | net_content_unit (ml/g) | function_en | inci_text
pao_months | best_before_on_pack (Y/N) | warnings_en | rp_name | rp_address
country_of_origin | unit_weight_g | unit_l_w_h_mm | image_files | image_rights_holder
image_licence_scope (own_shop / marketplaces / social) | current_stock

Then add the three sentences that settle the image question before the first upload:

Please confirm in writing who holds the rights to the product images you supply, and whether that licence covers use on our own shop, on marketplaces, and on social media. If you cannot confirm this, please say so and we will shoot our own. Please also confirm that the EAN listed per SKU is the number printed on the retail unit in this lot, not the case code or a catalogue number.

The last column earns its place: a listing with perfect data still sells stock you do not have, and the oversell problem starts with a stock figure that was true when the sheet was sent.

Questions buyers ask

Can I use the brand's Instagram photos on my shop?

No, unless the brand or its distributor has licensed them to you in writing. The photograph is copyrighted separately from the product, and reselling genuine goods does not carry a licence to the brand's marketing images. Screenshots from social media also carry the lowest resolution and the highest chance of showing a pack edition you do not stock.

The supplier's EAN already exists on Amazon under a different product. What now?

Scan the physical unit first, because the supplier's spreadsheet is the likelier error. If the pack number matches an existing listing for the same product, you list against it and cannot change its title or main image without brand registry rights. If it matches a different product, the number was reused or mistyped upstream; ask the supplier for the number on the current retail unit and do not create a new listing under the wrong one.

Does 880 at the start of the barcode prove the product is Korean?

It proves the company that registered the number did so with GS1 Korea, nothing more. GS1 states that the prefix does not identify the country of manufacture, and Korean brands produce in Korea, China and elsewhere under the same numbers. Origin for customs comes from the supplier's declaration and the paperwork, and for the customer from the country of origin printed on the pack under Article 19(1)(a).