The proportion of Korean consumers who seek luxury fashion brands when buying directly from overseas sellers has dropped significantly over the past two years, according to a survey by the national consumer agency released Monday.

The survey by the Korea Consumer Agency was conducted on 1,000 consumers who shopped directly from overseas sellers in the past year. It asked questions similar to a 2014 survey about consumers’ preferences and habits when buying products directly from abroad.


In 2014, 45 percent of respondents said that they had bought products from a luxury foreign brand, while in 2016 just 27 percent did so.

Of those shoppers in 2016, 22.1 percent said they bought Gucci products over the past year, making it the most in-demand as it surpassed the 19.1 percent who bought items from Prada, which had led demand for luxury products two years ago.

Although demand for luxury fashion items among direct shoppers may be falling, Koreans are buying more products from abroad overall.

According to a recent report by Statistics Korea, consumers here spent 411.8 billion won ($365.7 million) in the second quarter of 2016 on direct purchases from abroad, up over 25 percent from the 329 billion won during the second quarter of last year.

According to a spokesman for Malltail, a company specializing in international shipping for direct shoppers, consumers are taking interest in new product categories beyond luxury fashion and dietary supplements.

“In the first half of this year, we saw notable sales in new categories like action figures from Japan or premium kitchen electronics from Germany,” the spokesman told The Korea Herald. “We are seeing a rise in a variety of product categories and are rolling out services that will make direct shopping easier, such as a customer service center for customers who buy electronics from abroad.”

By Won Ho-jung (hjwon@heraldcorp.com)