K-Beauty's Next Market Is Latin America, and Shopee Is Opening the Door

Any K-beauty brand that has succeeded in Southeast Asia eventually considers its next market. The problem is that the options are few.

55% of overseas online K-beauty revenue in the first half of 2025 was concentrated in the U.S., and new markets are hard to enter without a local distributor or entity.

That formula is now shifting. Shopee, the leading ecommerce platform in Southeast Asia, is rapidly expanding logistics infrastructure in Latin America, opening a path to enter new markets on the back of existing Shopee operating experience.

How Shopee became number one in Southeast Asia

Shopee was built for Southeast Asia from the start. Rather than localising a global service, it designed its promotion structure and shopping experience around mobile consumers in Jakarta and Ho Chi Minh City — producing gamified shopping, live commerce and a local-seller-centred ecosystem.

Measure	Figure
Rank across six core Southeast Asian markets	First in all
Regional ecommerce share	53%
Sea Group 2025 transaction volume	$157.6 billion

Amazon, by contrast, applied global standards to each region. Despite robust global infrastructure, it could not overtake a platform designed around local consumer experience.

Why Latin America next

Because Latin America most closely resembles today's Southeast Asia.

Item	Figure
2025 Latin American ecommerce market	$191 billion
Brazil, Mexico and Argentina combined	84.5%
Growth rate	Among the fastest in the world

Consumer behaviour is similar too: shopping starts on mobile, products are discovered on social channels, and shoppers are price-sensitive yet actively receptive to new brands. Logistics infrastructure is still maturing but improving quickly — also the same.

For Shopee this isn't unfamiliar territory. The strategies that worked in Indonesia and Vietnam apply directly. Latin America is less a new challenge than an extension of a validated operating model.

The investment so far

Item	Figure
Brazil distribution centres	13
Brazil logistics hubs	180
Pickup points	3,000+
São Paulo metro orders eligible for next-day delivery	25%
Brazil GMV growth	+18% year over year
Share of Brazil revenue from local sellers	90%

Shopee re-entered Argentina in October 2025 and is expanding logistics footprints in Colombia, Chile and Mexico.

Are consumers ready?

The clearest answer is TikTok Shop Brazil.

Item	Figure
Launched	May 2025
Monthly GMV growth in three months	$1 million → $25.7 million
Brazilian TikTok users	~111 million

The speed is what matters. A user base that size converting to actual purchases in such a short period means consumer behaviour and payment and commerce infrastructure are already established. This is no longer about creating new consumption habits — it's about how fast you can use a validated sales channel.

What changes for K-beauty brands

The more important change is not the market but the mode of entry.

Previously, entry required a local distributor, entity or logistics partner, and opening a single market often took years.

Korea's cosmetics exports reached $11.4 billion in 2025, second only to France — yet 55% of overseas online revenue still comes from the U.S.

That is less because U.S. demand is overwhelmingly larger than because the distribution infrastructure a brand could operate on reliably existed there first.

Shopee's Latin American expansion changes that formula. A brand already operating on Shopee in Singapore or Indonesia can carry over its listings, pricing policy, promotion operations and fulfilment experience.

What has to be built is not distribution but market fit. Where building distribution used to take years, the environment now allows far faster validation of whether your product resonates with local consumers.

But operations are a separate matter

Widening sales channels and easing operations are not the same thing.

• BRL settlement is added
• Country-specific tariffs must be managed
• New settlement cycles appear

As the market widens, so does financial operating complexity.

What marketers should take from this

Read it as "entry cost changed," not "a market opened." Latin America did not suddenly grow — a route that bypasses entities and distributors appeared.

Attribute the 55% U.S. concentration to infrastructure, not demand. If the U.S. is large because operable infrastructure existed there first, other markets are being systematically underestimated.

Move the validation target from distribution to product fit. "What has to be built is not distribution but market fit" is the operational instruction — it changes where resources go.

Use TikTok Shop Brazil as an infrastructure-maturity indicator. $1M to $25.7M monthly GMV in three months proves payment and commerce rails already work. No consumption habit needs creating.

Put financial complexity in the entry plan. BRL settlement, country tariffs and new settlement cycles are finance and operations items, not marketing ones — a blockage here stalls the channel regardless.

Read the 90% local-seller share as competitive terrain. It means few foreign brands so far — and fierce local price competition.

Verify whether the live and social commerce playbook transfers. Whether gamified shopping and live commerce that worked in Southeast Asia work on Latin American consumers is a separate test — see Live Commerce Success Comes Down to One Thing: Early Traffic.