On 29 October, the day the South Korean band BTS played in São Paulo, more than a thousand people walked into Jini Cosméticos, a shop in Bom Retiro (the São Paulo neighbourhood where Korean immigrants settled, and now the city's "Koreatown") that sells only Korean skincare. Many had come from other states. The shop opened in August 2025, after four years of online sales; on event days it sees 800 to 900 customers. Asked why she wants to expand to other states, the person in charge of its marketing, Julia Carolina Rocha Simini, did not talk about demand. She talked about counterfeits: the Korean wave has grown so much that many sellers push fake products, and Jini is one of the few outlets selling the brands' official goods. Her plan is to reach the rest of Brazil so that everyone has access to the genuine article.
That is a retailer defining her competitive advantage as "we are not fake". It says something about the market she is in.
The full article looks at the numbers behind the queue, at where the fakes live, at why the official road getting shorter does not close the informal one, and at three questions a brand should ask before the consumer does.