how group orders work: the exhaustive explanation
with the strong caveat that group orders are run by individuals and therefore will have individual rule variations, this explainer page is here to give you a rough overview of how many GOs are run and roughly what to expect.and remember that if there's a term here that i didn't go over properly, i tried to make a comprehensive glossary here. plus, if you have any questions or anything, you can reach out to me on socials or via tumblr ask.
okay, so what even is a GO?
in the simplest terms, a GO is a group order that's managed and organized by a GOM (group order manager). that's usually just one person but there are also GOMs who work together to split up tasks. i've not personally met any teams bigger than 2 individuals, but there could be bigger co-GOM setups out there.the GOM keeps track of who wants what, collects payment, places the order so that it's one big consolidated shipment to the GOM (where the order is with a store), and then sorts and ships out the individually ordered items to the individuals who joined. you'll see these individuals referred to as joiners or claimers, typically.
why would you join a GO?
typically, you'd join a GO because- you are outside of korea (or the home country where the goods are being ordered) and it's far cheaper to split up payment for the shipping if it goes to the GOM first, compared to paying for international delivery to you individually. it's not uncommon for international shipping to be $35-100, depending on what you're buying.
- you can make specific claims on photocards (or otherwise randomized merch), like your bias or bias line. unlike walking into a store and buying an album for a 1 in 8 chance to get bang chan, for instance, you could join a GO to specifically claim him.
- you can enter into certain store promotions like fancalls, which only run for a specific period of time, generally tied to a comeback. GOs aren't the only way to enter fancalls, but may represent a much better chance at winning the fancall than entering individually.
- if you're buying limited edition merch or generally collecting a member that's highly sought after, you are paying as close to face value or retail price of the photocard/merch as you're going to get by joining a GO. when you wait to purchase in the after-market on mercari, rakuten, ebay, etc, you are taking your chances as to whether the going price will go up or not. and you might not be able to find that exact item at your local kpop store at a later date.
there are GOMs that cater to US/north america only, there are GOMs who are based in korea and other parts of asia but will ship worldwide ("WW"), there are GOMs who cater to europe, only canada, etc. and all things being equal, it's generally more beneficial or a joiner to go with for a GOM closer to them so that you're not paying extra expensive shipping fees, but that might not be possible, either because your merch might only be available for purchase in person (usually korea or japan) or there might not be many active GOMs in your country or area of the world. a lot of merch and photocards are region-exclusive or sufficiently limited edition that they won't actually show up at your local kpop store, so joining a GO might be your only real chance of getting that particular bit of merch.
so how does it work? how do you make claims? are they guaranteed?
okay technically speaking, a GO can be organized and run literally anywhere, including among friends in a whatsapp chat or strangers in a discord channel or work slack or telegram channel. but most kpop BST community mostly does its business out in the open on instagram and a bit on twitter.
both have the ability to post images, make individual and group DMs, and both have community ways of maintaining and showing public proofs (and complaints), with searchable hashtags. so the public infrastructure and community nature of these platforms lend themselves to kpop BST.
also, for now, we're mostly still talking about purchasing merch from a store (including online stores) in the context of a timely merch drop or album release, but that isn't the only type of GO there is and we'll get into variations later on.
so we'll keep to how it works on instagram for now for finding GOs to join and making claims, twitter won't be too different from this.
- GOMs will typically take claims either on a public post or in a BST group chat.
- joiners usually use an emoji to identify their claims -- just like a kpop idol tbh!
- GOMs often will give you a rule like "if i like your comment, then your claim is successful" so you know when your claim has been seen and accepted. joiners with successful/accepted claims are usually soon added to a group chat with other claimers.
- payments are often set out into these types and requested in this order:
- initials: retail cost/face value of the merch
- EMS: this is technically the name of a shipping company (like fedex) in korea, but very typically "EMS" is used for international shipping from the kaddy to GOM, whether the actual company EMS is used or not
- DOMs: domestic shipment cost from the GOM to the individual joiner. typically this can be either stamped (usually limited to only 5-6 photocards) or tracked. this cost usually is a little inflated over the literal cost of a stamp because it includes the cost of materials for shipping (envelopes, toploaders, shipping shields, etc)
- when the shipment arrives to the GOM, the goods are "on hand" and will need to be sorted by each joiner's claims. there is very often a "claim check" in the form of a photo of all the claimer's items all together which the joiner will need to review and approve.
how long the GOM takes at the claim check stage will vary a lot, as this can be a really time consuming step and it's done entirely 1 on 1 between the GOM and each joiner.
- the GOM will also typically perform an "address check" to ensure that the joiner sees how the mail is addressed and approves it before the mail is actually paid for and sent out.
if you're already in the group chat, you'll probably already know the rules, but if you're joining by commenting on a post, the GOM will generally lay out the rules right on the post about how to join, how many payments will be expected, when they'll be due, how the GOM accepts payment, and generally how the GO will be run. the rules might also be posted separately on the GOM's website (often hosted on carrd) and the post may mention something along the lines of "if you comment a claim, i expect you will have already read my carrd/rules and agreed to my terms."
one of the more important things to know and be aware of is the GOM's policies for payments. if you ghost and miss payments, many GOMs will keep your claims even if you paid the initials (see #4 below). that means that you could have paid for most of the claim and be considered to have abandoned your claim if you don't follow the GOM's rules.
keep in mind you may need to have a couple of backups if you choose a popular one and other people use it before you get to.
"soon" means perhaps within a few hours or a few days. during comeback season, turnaround will likely be pretty fast.
these GCs are usually not very chatty since it's mostly for the purpose of the GOM getting info out about when payments are due, sending out shipping updates, polling joiners about what to do about possible problems, etc. many GOMs will specifically say to keep the chat clear and keep it as one-way as possible from the GOM to joiners, and to take specific questions to DMs.
GOMs often update the group chat when appropriate: the items have been received, the kaddy has sent proofs, there was an issue with the order, the sets are very uneven, EMS is due tomorrow, etc. but how proactive the GOM is will vary a lot. some also post updates to their stories, and they may or may not send the stories to the GC.
some GOMs are very open to questions and requests for updates, but some are not. these are all individuals with varying levels of time for inquiries.
some GOMs will front the cost of EMS in order to get the kaddy shipment on the way to them, and then they will collect EMS payments from the joiners afterward. however, most GOMs will not have this kind of financial leeway to do this and may require that joiners all pay EMS before the GM instructs the kaddy to ship to them
n.b. some variations i've seen on this are that some GOMs will ask for EMS and DOMs together
some GOMs put unique identifiers such as stickers, joiners' usernames, numbers, or other symbols on the outside of the mail to serve as proof of shipment when the mail with that identifier is posted to their stories. this is so that the GOM can show that they're dropping the mail in a mailbox without showing address info in that proof.
most GOMs will accept it if you don't want your username on your mail, but not all will actively ask if you're okay with it
so one big reason why people join GOs is for the better chance or even guarantee of getting exactly the pulls that you want. chances tend to be very good of getting who you want because of the quantities being ordered in (depending on the GO) can be in the dozens and dozens of albums. some stores -- not all -- guarantee no dupes of you order sets of 8 (or whatever the number is for the group you're ordering), meaning that if you're ordering exactly 8 albums, the store will provide you the preorder benefit (POB) merch with no dupes among them. if you order in a lesser quantity, they won't wort the POBs, so you might wind up with deeply uneven sets, like 4 of member A, 3 of member B, and 1 of member C, and none of members D, E, F, and G.
even if the store doesn't guarantee full sets of POBs, the numbers are still basically in your favor in terms of getting a decent mix when you’re ordering 80 albums vs ordering 4 randomly to your house directly. but it's a numbers game in the end, and sometimes the store distributes horribly uneven lots, at which point you may wind up with a member you didn't originally sign up for, or the GOM may try to make trades with other GOMs and people in order to get you what what you originally wanted. that's a huge maybe though.
this seems complicated.
indeed it is! hence i decided to write up this ridiculous guide about it.there is in fact a whole industry of companies that help make these group orders work: kaddies, or k-addies, or kaddy/k-addy in the singular. these are essentially warehouse services in korea that will take receipt of your packages and film it and sort it. the filming is important because if there are any discrepancies with what the store was supposed to send (like missing merch), the store often requires that the unboxing be filmed in one continuous video, begun before the unboxing begins, in order to get them to fulfill any returns or missing items. these kaddies also handle everything professionally, in that the videos are filmed and sent to the GOM as part of the proof of the merch receipt, the handlers wear gloves, and they also handle the customer service part with the store to manage the returns/exchanges. (the store will often require that merch be destroyed and proof sent to them before they'll send replacements, for instance, so the kaddy will hadnle that.)
for a small fee, the kaddy will also discard stuff you don’t want and pass on the PCs that you do want to you, meaning shipping is a lot less. this is huge as far as overall savings in shipping.
and how long does all this take?
ordering through a GOM will typically take many weeks, because they’ll almost certainly need to only instruct the kaddy to hold onto boxes until it’s all ready to ship, and often it will take a few months. it is not uncommon for a GOM to take several months or even a year to get all their joiners everything. is a year typical for turnaround time? not really, but it's not totally uncommon either. it may be because of weird delays, shipping problems, or (more likely) personal reasons like the GOM moving or work/family issues. should you put up with a year of waiting? given that a comeback period is usually only a few weeks or a couple months, possibly not for future GOs, but your mileage may vary. it's really between you and the GOM.so what does the GOM get out of this?
sometimes, very little in terms of monetary gain and perks. often, they do it for community and friends, and the administration and organizing isn't that much of a burden for them. often, they will claim a benefit of some sort (like one of a kind polaroids that fancall winners would otherwise get if they entered on their own) or a "personal attempt" where they have friends and previous joiners more willingly support the attempt.what other kinds of GOs are there?
other than store purchases for specific merch drops and comebacks, people also sell off collections and clear out their items. these are typically done in one of two ways, "GO style" where the entire collection must go or else the sale doesn't go through, or else items are sold off one at a time.availability of these gets updated as things get claimed and sold.