How It All Started
You know you’re on to a good thing when the minute it starts, it explodes.
When Arthur Mademba-Sy, a Parisian native, began exporting trending Korean products to France, the demand sparked the French taste for more.
Arthur moved to Daegu, Korea in 2011 as an exchange student while pursuing a master’s degree in digital marketing.
In Korea, he met his future wife, decided to stay and dabbled in many side projects – from creating I Love Daegu t-shirts, supporting local restaurants with their digital marketing, to establishing an e-commerce site for cozy pajamas.
He enjoyed the business of e-commerce, and wanted to connect back to his native roots. In 2017, he began exporting trending Korean products to France, starting with cosmetics and cute Korean socks, by marketing through social media channels.
The demand led to the creation of his e-commerce site, Ma Petite Corée, and grew to a core team with expertise in sales, SNS marketing, and IT.
Today, Ma Petite Corée sells a range of curated Korean products in the categories of cosmetics, fashion, stationary, K-pop paraphernalia, as well as a monthly surprise subscription box of trending Korean goodies.
Challenges Overcome
Finding the right Korean products was a challenge, considering that they identified about 40 different companies that could be in direct competition.
“We’re consistently keeping a pulse on what’s out there, and seeing how we can stay a step ahead.”
As a result, their products not only include mass-market items from larger established Korean companies, but also include independent brands, such as smaller companies focusing on the rising demand for vegan-friendly cosmetics.
Ma Petite Corée was striving to reach $100,000 US in annual sales for 2019 – and they successfully met that goal by focusing on impeccable delivery service and attentive customer communication.
Looking Ahead
Ma Petite Corée is continuing to expand their customer base beyond France to other Western Europe regions. Their current e-commerce transactions are conducted in French, English, Italian, Spanish, German, and Portuguese.
While establishing its B2C foundation, Ma Petite Corée is expanding its team to focus on its B2B visibility by partnering with Korean brands through their recently established sister company, Let’s Buy Korea, for European market distribution.
