Since we got into K-Pop a few years back we have grown into the genre and the whole phenomenon, Stanning groups, having Biases and even knowing the dance routines! But it’s the music and the albums that are the real draw and in this world of Digital Downloads and Streaming buying Albums seems a little redundant and yet K-Pop is bringing physical sales back into fashion, because Comebacks aren’t just a CD with a lyric sheet, no they are a whole lot more, but getting K-Pop Albums in the UK isn’t as easy as you might think.
So, you’ve heard the new song by New Jeans or Stray Kids, Mamamoo, Riize or one of the 90,000 bands that fall under the genre title and you like it enough to download it or add it to your playlist. Then you start to get into the band, you dive into their back catalogue or you await the next single, next album or the new Music Video on YouTube, you’ve learnt the Cheer Chant and you have that difficult sequence in the Dance Challenge memorised and you’ve already got a Bias (your preferred member of that band). Then you have a thousand songs by a hundred groups, you know the names of all the members and all their songs, the only remaining step to the end of the diving board is to buy an album – just one!
And just one is all it takes, because with one you are committed, or soon will be! (as is men with a padded jacket will soon be after you!) Because one album is never enough and if you aren’t good with impulse control you’ll turn into TikTok’s DizzyPop!
With that first album bought you want and need more by the same band, or a different band and you’ll need all versions of the new album, even if that means buying each member’s version and in the case of Seventeen that means 12 individual member versions, the group version and the Walmart version, the Amazon Version and the Japanese version, FOR EACH CONCEPT!! Yes all five concepts, go on add that up – 12+4×5! Yep that’s just 80 versions of the same album, that you don’t even own a CD player to play one of the CDs on, let alone the 80 copies of the same disc!!
(not our collection)
So with all that in mind you want to buy the new Le Serrafim Album? But where do you get it from, well if you are fortunate enough to live in Korea, then anywhere! If you are in the U.S. you have choices like Walmart or a number of dedicated stores, but if you are like us and are stuck in hell, the UK, then your options are a little limited, because shops like HMV and Fopp (same company, different name) seem to think that KPOP is spelt B.T.S and that’s the only option!
So you have to look elsewhere and this is what that experience can be like.
Bulk Group Order
So, if you want to buy a mass of albums to be shipped to you direct from Korea it can be expensive, so many fan decide to order as a group, often found via Discord or Twitter, you work out what you want and one person orders all the mass of albums and pays the import and postage costs, then you pay out your share of the postage, but if someone is ordering a pre-release then you may be waiting for ages to get your one album.
Sometimes people order their 80 versions in order to get the full set of Photo Cards of their bias and then sell on the albums minus their choice of photo cards and for a small fee, thus making the order a profitable one, but also getting the cream of the crop in the way of the full set of photo cards and other goodies, then selling the the cast-off’s to you.
You can do it yourself and get yourself a K-Addy (short for Korean Address). You see Korea record shops and fan-meets won’t just send albums and the like across the seas to you, because it’s not worth their time and resources, so some bright spark set up a work around and made a company that will allow you to order your 50 albums from one place, 35 from another and 600 photo-cards from somewhere else, having them all sent to the warehouse somewhere in Korea, they will then, unbox the order, consolidate it all into one bigger box, along with anything else you want to buy to be shipped and give you 45 days storage to amass even more albums and photo cards and beauty products then when you say you are done, seal up everything in one big box and post it via FedEx to you. All for as little as $6 of the total price of the albums they send you, which if you buy direct is less then one extra copy of an album (There are extra charges for different boxes, consolidations etc, or you pay a fee and wave these) – Great, unless you are in the UK and then even K-Addy’s won’t help!!
So, what other options are there? well you could just find a dedicated KPop shop and go buy the albums there, like…
You could order direct from JYP which have cheap albums (£10) but the shipping is £79 per album
or Weverse where shipping is £60 so either way you would have to pay import tax of an extra 20% so its really not worth it.
KPop.ro
There are a lot of places around the world that sell K-Pop and some are in random places, KPop.ro for instance is in Romania, they ship worldwide and have a large choice of artists, the problem is they take aaaaaaages to send! Because they order in a similar way Group Orders are done, they will order the big groups BlackPink, Stray Kids, etc, but when they need to restock they wait for enough orders to be put in before ordering and so if you want Bibi or Alice and they don’t carry that as standard they will take your order and then add it on. We have used them a few times but orders of the new Aespa album will be the previous album by the time it arrives! However they are cheap just slooooowwww.
This UK based company seem to be pretty good, their reviews all seem positive but the same issues arise with delay times because they are ordering from Korea to the UK for their own stock levels and then you have the other problem – prices. A K-Pop album in Korea is around £10 ordering it from a UK company will make that album at least double the price, as the company will add the cost of postage/import tax to your latest TXT album and then their commission too. So for that reason we haven’t ordered from KPop Moon.
Kpop Street
Likewise KPop Street, seem to be a legitimate company but their registered offices and their ‘Shop’ seems to be listed all over London. We tried to Pop down! to the shop in King’s Cross one Saturday afternoon only to discover a tailors and no KPop albums/shop. It has since moved to Crouch End on top of a Charity shop you have to order online and pick up from the shop. So we have remained skeptical of this alternative.
Amazon
Like everything, Amazon sell albums but they are UK prices (£22 minimum) with Prime you get it the next day and free, but the choices tend to be random and limited and random. Where as in the US you get the Walmart version you now get the Amazon version with exclusive bits etc. I have bought an album from a seller via Amazon and got loads of goodies to go with an album.
Coco Dive
This is one of those websites where you can spin the wheel and get ridiculous reductions/discounts. We tried it once but to be honest it made Kpop.ro seem speedy and it was highly BTS-centric. The money you saved on the albums ended up being added to the postage so overall it was pretty expensive.
Sokollabs
This is one of the only physical shops in London for Kpop and one of the most chaotic messes you will ever find. Albums are placed on shelves in haphazard ways with Girl groups/Boy Groups then Soloists amongst beauty products. OSTs are put with stickers and stationary? When attempting to find your group the alphabet system is neither English nor Korean. The staff seemingly know the big names Ateez etc but not the smaller or Older groups Purple Kiss or Girls Generation. They will just look at you strangely and often walk away without saying anything. The prices are ridiculous! I think Dreamcatcher was about £29 in fact almost all albums are around 30 and upwards. That is unless you manage to get the amazing sale price of 2% off……Wow……
KPopAlbums.com
So for Christmas Ash took a chance on this Korean company to order a few albums and one of Bob’s presents and was happily surprised at the service and speed and of course the price, this was ordering diresct from Kora and so £10 for an album is a shock, the postage was around 20% extra, again a revealation for us!). So I Ordered older BlackPink Albums and Aespa albums. It all seemed simple enough.
Then I wanted to add in a G-Idle Album, so I messaged them and asked to add, within a few hours a reply was received and really nice communications, the Korean staff member added the album to the order and didn’t even bothering adding shipping costs to the pre-existing order. The albums arrived via Fed-Ex within a week, this is is unheard of in our experience (Fed-Ex UK however were typical for any UK based company and doubled the time of the delivery) The order went from Korea to London in 18 hours
You can of course look on Ebay for some of the Rarer Groups/Soloists which we have done a few times.
There seemingly are shops popping up all over the place but it’s quite hard to judge what’s legit and whats a scam. So if in doubt we recommend KPopAlbums.com and if all else fails look at the reviews and don’t fall prey to Sokollabs pricing!
Now we just have to find out how to trade some of the members photocards….. Anyone want Wonwoo?
Climbing Moss 
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