Glam Touch
Sen Vu
I have always used Korean beauty products but they were really hard to find in London when I moved here from Vietnam in 2009. I had to buy products online from Hong Kong and Korea and they took three weeks to arrive.
I realised there was a gap in the UK market and I set up an e-commerce store in 2017. At that time K-beauty wasn’t as popular as it is now, and I struggled to identify and analyse our customer base and figure out what direction to go in.
I had to be very careful in curating the products we sell. We have different weather here compared to Asia, and products that do well in Korea don’t necessarily work for British customers – and vice versa.
I took a big risk opening a shop in Soho in 2021, in the middle of the Covid pandemic. But thankfully the business is doing well; as a result of Covid, people have more time for skincare routines and self-care.
It has been a long journey and I’ve had to overcome a lot of barriers as a non-native English speaker, but I am proud of building this business from the ground up.
Image courtesy Sen Vu
