What Documents Should Come With a K-Beauty Wholesale Order?

What documents should come with a K-beauty wholesale order? More than most new resellers expect. When you buy Korean skincare wholesale, the products are only half of what you receive. The other half is paperwork, and it's how you prove where your stock came from, keep customs and carriers happy, and answer a marketplace that asks questions about your listings.

Why paperwork matters for resellers

Three situations come up again and again: a marketplace like Amazon asks you to show where you bought a product; a carrier or fulfillment center needs to know whether an item is safe to ship; or a customer asks whether a product is genuine. In each case, the right document answers the question in minutes.

The documents, one by one

Commercial invoice. Your proof of purchase: who sold you what, in what quantity, at what price. Keep every invoice. Marketplaces can ask for supplier invoices when you list certain brands or when a listing is questioned.

Packing list. What's physically in each carton. Useful for checking a delivery against your order and for any warehouse that receives stock on your behalf.

Air waybill (AWB). The shipping document and tracking number for air freight. It ties your order to a specific shipment.

Certificate of origin. States where the products were made. In the US, imported goods generally have to be marked with their country of origin, and origin also decides which duty rates apply. With DDP shipping, which Peacock offers for US orders, import duties are handled before delivery, but the certificate is still worth keeping on file.

Certificate of Authenticity (COA). The supplier's statement that the goods are genuine. On Peacock orders, COA always means Certificate of Authenticity. Some suppliers use the same letters for a Certificate of Analysis (batch test results from the manufacturer), so if you buy elsewhere, it's worth asking which one you're getting.

SDS (safety data sheet, formerly MSDS). Hazard and handling information for a product. Cosmetics used the way a consumer would use them are generally exempt from OSHA's hazard communication rules, but SDSs still come up in shipping: carriers and fulfillment centers may ask for one to classify items like aerosols or alcohol-based products.

Red flags

• Cosmetics sold as government-cleared. The FDA doesn't review or sign off on cosmetics before they go on sale (color additives are the exception), so any document or listing suggesting a cream or serum has been cleared by the FDA is a warning sign
• Documents that don't match the order. Product names, quantities and dates should line up across the invoice, packing list and AWB
• No way to check a document. If a supplier can't confirm a document is theirs, treat it with caution

How to verify Peacock documents

Every approved Peacock buyer can find their order documents in their account dashboard. Invoices, COAs, air waybills, certificates of origin and packing lists can also be checked on our Verify Documents page, using the document number and the email address on your buyer account. For more on choosing a supplier, see our guide to questions to ask a K-beauty supplier, or read the buying guide.