K-Pop Album Store “Ktown4U” May Have To Refund $2.3 Million USD In Album Pre-Sales

They may have to refund millions.

Popular K-Pop album and goods store, Ktown4U recently got into hot waters with fans as their projected reproduction of popular albums including NCT‘s Empathy, encountered some issues.

| SM Entertainment

Just a week ago, the retailer started pushing out polls to collect data about demand for the reprint of various albums, from SM Entertainment, including NCT’s Empathy and Baekhyun‘s Delight. Afterwhich, the retailer started opening pre-sales funding collection.

| SM Entertainment

Up to this point, it was assumed that the retailer had discussed the reprint with SM Entertainment prior. It was reported that if the retailer had collected enough pre-sales to prove demand, the company would go forward with reprinting. However, fans’ hopes went up in the air, when doubt was cast upon the reprinting with a vague announcement by Ktown4U.

| SM Entertainment

As Ktown4U is known to work with various fanclubs and communities to boost group sales, they had released information to the groups via social media, on Weibo and Twitter. It was later announced that there had not been prior consultation with SM Entertainment regarding this information.

| @ktown4u_com/Twitter

A day later on January 22, 2021, the retailer made a second announcement to update fans.

| @ktown4u_com/Twitter

Currently, the situation regarding possibility of reprint remains unconfirmed. Ktown4U is currently waiting on an official response about reproduction, as stated in their latest update.

On the other hand, fans are outraged. Reportedly, they had collected $2.3 million USD from Chinese fans alone in pre-sales for various albums from Red Velvet, Taeyeon, NCT and Krystal.

While Ktown4U has now given fans the choice of refund or not, the question still stands – will the reproduction push through? Or will Ktown4U be forced to refund millions to the fans? Stay tuned for more updates.

Source: Douban