For a long time, wholesale platforms believed that growth solved everything.
More suppliers.
More products.
More listings.
At first, scale felt efficient.
But today, many buyers and suppliers are discovering the downside of “everything in one place.”
In the U.S. wholesale market, many platforms have become overwhelmingly large.
From a buyer’s perspective:
Endless catalogs
Thousands of similar products
Too much time spent searching, comparing, and guessing
Instead of clarity, buyers face fatigue.
When everything is available,
it becomes harder — not easier — to decide what’s worth selling.
This is why wholesale now needs curation.
Across the industry, behavior is changing.
Buyers want:
Direct conversations with suppliers
Transparent pricing
Long-term partnerships, not one-off orders
When platforms control communication and inflate costs,
direct trade becomes the more logical path.
Wholesale has always been relationship-driven.
Technology should support those relationships — not replace them.
As platforms grew, so did their fees.
Many suppliers now find that platform commissions:
Rival or exceed the cost of traditional sales reps
Cut deeply into already thin margins
Force price increases that buyers ultimately pay
At the same time, buyers are increasingly aware that they are paying for platform overhead — not product value.
Naturally, both sides begin asking the same question:
Why not work directly?
MIK is still a small platform.
And that’s intentional.
Being small allows us to:
Curate instead of accumulate
Know the suppliers we introduce
Maintain context around how products are actually made
Scale often demands speed.
Curation demands judgment.
We chose judgment.
In massive platforms, quality gets buried.
In smaller, curated networks:
Good products stand out
Serious suppliers are visible
Buyers can trust what they see
We don’t believe global buyers need more options.
They need better signals.
Being selective isn’t a limitation —
it’s how trust is built.
Manufacturing in Korea is expensive.
Labor costs are high, which is why so much production has moved to
China, Vietnam, and Bangladesh.
And yet, Korea still has a strong base of active factories.
They remain because they operate differently.
Many Korean manufacturers produce at near-luxury standards, offering:
Exceptional quality control
Deep material and formulation expertise
Small-batch precision
Long-term consistency
They survived not by being the cheapest —
but by being the most reliable.
MIK doesn’t try to represent everything made in Korea.
We focus on:
Products global consumers will genuinely value
Factories that prioritize quality over volume
Brands that are export-ready in execution, not just ambition
This requires saying no — often.
But that’s what curation means.
Wholesale doesn’t need endless listings.
It needs discernment.
Buyers want clarity.
Suppliers want fairness.
Both want relationships that last.
As the industry moves away from high-fee, high-noise platforms,
smaller, curated networks are becoming more relevant — not less.
We’re not trying to dominate wholesale.
We’re trying to improve it.
Curated access.
Minimal friction.
Direct relationships.
And a belief that
products made properly — especially in Korea — still belong on the global stage.
We are still small.
And we are okay with that.
Because staying small allows us to listen, learn, and adapt —
before scaling anything.
MIK is not just curating products.
We are curating how small businesses can work globally, without losing control, margins, or identity.
MIK is not trying to be the biggest wholesale platform.
We are trying to be the most thoughtful one.
Curated access.
Direct relationships.
And a deep respect for the founders who make things properly — even when it’s harder.
