Korean online sellers answer hundreds of inquiries a day and triage aggressively. A message that follows the local convention gets a same-day answer. One that reads like a foreign customer service email gets skipped or answered in a single word.
Structure that works
Lead with the order or product number, state the question in one sentence, and stop. Korean sellers scan for the identifier first. Long introductions, apologies for writing in English and explanations of your situation move the actual question below the fold and reduce your chance of a reply. Attaching a screenshot of the product page with the relevant part circled also helps, since it removes any ambiguity about which listing you mean.
Ask closed questions
Is option B in stock today gets an answer. Can you tell me about availability does not. Yes-or-no and specific-number questions are answered quickly because they require no composition. This matters doubly if you are relying on machine translation in both directions. Two questions in one message is usually the practical limit, and anything beyond that tends to get a partial answer covering only the first.
Language and tone
Write in Korean via translation rather than in English. Korean business messaging is formal and brief, and translation output tends to land in roughly the right register automatically. Avoid idioms and contractions, which translate badly. Honorific endings matter less than brevity, and translation output that is slightly stiff reads as polite rather than odd in a business context. Keep sentences short, since long clauses are where machine translation most often goes wrong.
Timing expectations
Korean small sellers work 9am to 6pm Korea time, Monday to Friday. Messages sent Friday evening are answered Monday. During Seollal and Chuseok weeks, expect no response at all for four to five days, and plan any pre-holiday order around that gap. Response times also lengthen sharply after a viral post or a broadcast feature, when a small seller may receive a month of inquiries in a day.
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Start a buy-for-me order →Frequently asked
Will sellers reply in English if I ask?
Occasionally, usually briefly. Do not depend on it, and do not treat a Korean reply as a refusal to help.
What if a seller does not respond at all?
Two unanswered messages over three business days usually means the shop is inactive or the item is unavailable. Move on rather than escalating.
Is the public Q and A board or private inquiry better?
Private inquiry for anything about your order. The public board is slower but sometimes gets a more careful answer since it is visible to other buyers.