Haul: Gmarket (December 2014)
Sunday, December 21, 2014
I used to order from Gmarket all the time in 2012. I think I had 5 orders during that year, which was a lot considering that I had basically no money back then. I haven't gone back to Gmarket much since then (I have no idea why) but I wanted to pick up a few things for myself, as well as some Christmas presents for friends. With that said, let's get started!
If you've never heard of Gmarket before: it's basically like Korean eBay. In fact, it's actually a brand of eBay Korea. Here's how it works: You add items to your cart (they must be worldwide shipping approved) and pay for your items and the estimated shipping price. Once all the items arrive at Gmarket, they will package everything up and weigh it again to get a true shipping weight. If it's less than what you payed, it will be refunded to your Gmarket account and if it's more, you'll have to pay the extra before your order is shipped. It's kind of similar to a shopping service, except Gmarket does not take commission fees and they also offer some buyer incentives such as coupons and VIP member benefits.
I placed the order on the 6th of December and paid a total of ￦154,190 which was about $181 NZD. I only bought 11 items from 7 different sellers. One of the sellers was really slow in shipping the items that I bought from them, so it delayed my package which was shipped out on the 15th. For a frame of comparision: the last times that I've ordered it usually took 4 days at most for the items to arrive at Gmarket. Gmarket only offers EMS shipping to New Zealand, which is expensive but fast. I originally paid ￦56,230 and even though it was apparently more (￦61,220), I think they didn't charge me since it was just a small amount over. I received my package via a courier on the morning of the 19th.
Here is how it came, in this huge long box which was obviously to accomodate the poster tube, haha. I was really annoyed at how beat up it was, I mean there was a huge rip out of the cardboard in the corner and the top of the box seemed like it had been opened. I seriously hope that it was just customs opening it to check.
Here is everything I received inside my package. As you can see, Gmarket doesn't take out the items and repackage them like some shopping services do. Anyway, let's take a look at what I got!
I ordered these from the store synnara, which is a major music store in Korea. I picked up Kyuhyun's At Gwanghwamun album for myself and Zhou Mi's Rewind and Beast's Time albums as a present for my friend's birthday. The huge poster tube that came with this package also included the poster for Beast's Time. I love buying kpop posters, they're so unbelivably cheap (￦1,000 or about $1) if you buy them with the album. I was a little annoyed because the posters for Kyuhyun and Zhou Mi's albums sold out about 2 days before I placed my order though.
Honestly, there's not too much to be said. I love both Kyuhyun and Zhou Mi's albums, and I'm quite fond of Beast's album too. The packaging of the Beast album was so cool though, the photobook had lots of transparent pages and it just seemed like a lot of work had been put into it.
Rating: 
/ 5
/ 5
Rating: / 5
/ 5
I bought two diaries from the seller 노란박스천사. There's a ton of different diaries in the listing I linked, but I chose 2 of the option DV18 which were these two adorable smiley face diaries! They were ￦11,000 each with free domestic delivery which is so much cheaper than the diaries here. I got one in mint and one in pink, one for myself and one for my friend. They also included the little pack on the left which was full of cute freebies. There were a few sheets of stickers, a notebook and a coupon. I'm not sure what the coupon does though since my level of Korean isn't fluent.
Rating: / 5
/ 5
Next, I bought these slimming tights from 포에버. I needed some thick black tights anyway since my favourite pair got really ripped up, so I decided to pay a little more and get some slimming ones. I got the option 2 Powerstep tights in 880D black. These were super super tight when I tried them on but they did actually make my legs appear quite slim! They're so thick so I hope I'll be able to get some great use out of them during the winter.
Rating: / 5
/ 5
I also got these socks from 발사랑 양말. Gmarket has so many sellers with cute socks available but I chose these because I just wanted some plain-ish but still kinda cute socks. These were only ￦3,900 for the set which is pretty good. However, this seller was really slow to ship out the items. I took it took 4, maybe 5 days to ship out which annoyed me a lot since every other seller shipped out in about 2 days. I think the socks are worth the price, since it's about $5 NZD for the set but I would rather have dropped these and gotten my order quicker. However, they're still pretty cute socks in general.
Rating: / 5
/ 5
I didn't take photos of any of the other shipping envelopes but this one from Deepny was so cute! I chose this stripy top with a meshy layer which was ￦10,900 or about $13 NZD. The material is really stretchy and almost like lycra, but it was still comfortable. The mesh material is also quite comfortable. I really liked how the top was cut and it sits quite nicely when worn. I'm really happy with it, especially for the price. I've actually been following Deepny's website for a while (and edited photos from it) so it's nice to be able to own something from there!
Rating: / 5
/ 5
This was the one reason why I decided to do a mass order from Gmarket: 100 masks for ￦16,600, or about $0.20 NZD per mask. They're from the brand Soomask and the seller 엘코스21. I've tried some Soomask face masks before when my friend ordered some of their masks so I decided 100 face masks was a good investment. There's no such thing as too many masks right? I picked the flavours 녹차 (green tea), 큐텐 (enzyme Q10), 알로에 (aloe), 석류 (pomegranate) and 오이 (cucumber) and I got 20 of each flavour. I really liked the masks, especially because there wasn't a huge amount of serum in each packet like I've had in some face mask packs. The mask itself was a pretty good fit for my face, though I wish the mouth cutout was a little bigger and the actual mask a bit taller. It wasn't really a problem for me since it fit almost exactly, but if anyone with a longer face wanted to try, it would be a bit of an issue.
Rating: / 5
/ 5
I really like Gmarket overall. This is my 6th time ordering from them and my experience was about the same as previous times. I only had a couple issues, one of them being slow delivery from the sellers, which wasn't Gmarket's fault. However, the only issue does annoy me a lot. In my previous Gmarket orders, they've put a lot of packaging peanuts in, even in ones that didn't necessarily need them. But in this one, there was a lot of space, like about 1/3 of the box that had nothing in it and the packages could've been banged around a lot. Luckily the items I got weren't too fragile so they weren't damaged. Also the condition of the box concerns me a lot, but I have no idea if that was due to transit or customs. Anyway, I was mostly happy with my items and everything except the way the package was packed!
Overall: / 5
/ 5
1 comments
So glad to have come across your blog ♥ and this post esecially, as it helps alot! Hheheh ~ I have been adding things, lots of things to my cart, but never actually go through with the orders because the shipping has always comes down to a big number, but to see that shipping to NZ is faster than expected, I can't wait to try it! Thanks so much for such a helpful post! btw, love Zhou Mi's Rewind album ;)
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