Which K-beauty prices do we leave out of our comparisons, and why?
As of September 17, 2026, we excluded 7,236 retailer offers from our price comparisons; the most common reason was "not a pinned us product page" (36.1% of exclusions).
Exclusions by reason
| Reason | Offers | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Not a pinned US product pageThe link lands on a search page, a non-US storefront, or a page that no longer exists. | 2,613 | 36.1% |
| Price too old, or gone from the retailer's feedThe listing wasn't re-confirmed recently enough, or the retailer stopped listing it. | 1,485 | 20.5% |
| Different size, pack or variantThe listing is a different size, a multipack, a set or another variant, so it isn't the same product. | 1,179 | 16.3% |
| Seller not verifiedThe seller on the listing hasn't passed our seller check, or the listing was removed on a rights complaint. | 980 | 13.5% |
| Reason not recordedThe offer was excluded but no reason text was stored. | 581 | 8.0% |
| Price failed a sanity checkThe price was implausibly far from the other sellers, or came through as a range. | 394 | 5.4% |
| Other recorded reasonA reason was recorded that doesn't fit the groups above. | 4 | 0.1% |
Counts are the excluded offers on file on September 17, 2026. Each exclusion carries a recorded reason, grouped here into plain-language categories. The full record holds 274,533 daily exclusion entries over 38 days.
How a comparison qualifies
Method v1.3 · August 2026
- Daily observed price. One representative in-stock price per retailer, per product, per day, from each US-reachable retailer's listing.
- Trusted sellers only. A price counts only from a verified seller, on a deep-linked product page, re-checked within the last 7 days.
- Same product only. The offer must match the product's size, pack count and variant. Multipacks, sets, minis and other sizes are excluded.
- Spread = (high − low) ÷ high for one product on one day, across the retailers carrying it.
- Coverage threshold. A product needs at least 2 retailers to enter the index.
- Category exclusions. Sheet masks, pads, sheets, stickers and jellies are excluded because single-unit and multipack listings aren't reliably distinguishable.
- Outlier guard. A listing below 0.5× or above 1.8× the product's cross-retailer median is dropped unless a second retailer corroborates it.
- Completeness guard. If a retailer's coverage collapses on a given day, that day's numbers are not published.
We never accept payment for ranking. Rankings are by value, authenticity first.
Release calendar
- K-Beauty Price Index — updated daily
- Shipping & duty terms — captured daily
- US K-beauty imports — updated monthly after the US Census Bureau release, typically by the 13th of the month
- Method & exclusions — updated daily
Method changelog
v1.3 — current version (logged September 27, 2026). Earlier method versions were not logged publicly; from this date every method change is recorded here with its date and reason.
Corrections
When we publish something wrong, we correct it here with the date, what changed and why. No corrections to date for these editions.
Cite this page
The K-Beauty Plug. The US K-Beauty Record: K-Beauty Plug method & exclusions. Edition of September 17, 2026. https://www.kbeautyplug.com/record/method/2026-09-17. Accessed .
The US K-Beauty Record: K-Beauty Price Index · Shipping & duty terms · US K-beauty imports
Past editions
Every edition keeps a permanent, dated address so a citation still points at the figure that was quoted. Editions are published only on days that pass our quality checks, so some dates have none.