Lime is a cosmetics manufacturing company located in Hanam-si, Gyeonggi-do, which produces basic skincare cosmetics and hair products focusing on cushion foundations. Lime representative Park Ji-young has been ambitiously seeking to open up overseas export channels after seeing the status of K-Beauty rise throughout Asia, the Americas, and even Europe, but had no idea how to begin the process, which led to her requesting help from the business matching team in October 2016.

Park Ji-young decided to participate in the 2016 COSMOPROF ASIA, Asia’s largest beauty expo, which was held in November in Hong Kong, as part of the active overseas business plan. She planned to meet with many buyers through the expo in order to advertise Lime’s products and gain feedback. Therefore, tradeKorea’s business matching managers created a transaction proposal containing information about the main Lime products that would be presented at Lime’s booth, and executed a preliminary marketing plan to accommodate up to 3,000 Asian region buyers.

After attending the COSMOPROF exposition in Hong Kong, Lime accelerated their efforts in overseas business, and continued to hold consultations with the Vietnamese buyer that was interested in Lime’s cushion foundation product.

Amid the ongoing, in-depth discussions, the Vietnamese buyer requested cooperation and advice from Lime in relation to product registration in Vietnam and registration in the Vietnamese Ministry of Food and Drug Administration for sales. However, Lime did not have any experience with arranging exports to Vietnam, and therefore lacked information about local cosmetics market conditions or how to make preparations prior to exporting. Therefore, tradeKorea’s business matching managers gathered and provided materials from various institutions and generously offered their support.

The consultation with the Vietnamese buyer went well, and as a result, an export agreement for the “Real Cover Pink Cushion” product containing a patented sebum control ingredient, among other Lime cushion foundations, was concluded, and discussions for a Vietnam-exclusive agreement in the future continued.

In 2017, based off this export opportunity in Vietnam, Lime plans to solidify their export goals, setting the Chinese and neighboring Southeast Asian markets as their next target, and expressed their intent to actively participate in export events hosted by tradeKorea and their gratitude towards its business matching managers for their support.