It's funny to hear that because actually we can! And I'll explain why
For a Korean Briize (and some Asian Briize) to purchase an item they just have to go to the site and buy it, sometimes they don't even have to pay shipping cause there are physical stores that sell the products. Koreans buy a lot because they buy it so cheap!
For international fans, (and I'll use my own experience). First I have to hire someone to make the purchase for me, I'll need to pay the fees for them to buy + the product price + the shipping for the warehouse + the warehouse storage + the fees for them to ship the product + extra safety packaging + the cost of shipping + the taxes to enter my country to finally have it in my hands lol. can you imagine how many more I could buy if I didn't have to pay all the extras?
And sometimes even the box is not accepted, it goes back and I have to pay everything again
Albums are actually cheap to buy resales, but merch and cards (without the extras i mentioned) gets sometimes 5x 6x 10x times more expensive than would be if we could bought directly from the source.
I'm a collector so I check all the prices frequently and I know that the international fandom is what makes some Koreans able to buy so many! Because they resell them to us at absurd prices!
If you think Koreans buy so many is not because they all have money but because they are the only one that the company allows to buy! We can't buy if we don't have an address, a phone number and be able to prove the Korean identity so you can't just compare our purchasing power that simple lol.
They atm are just able to compete for fancalls because some int fans don't have access to it! If we had, Koreans would have to buy 5 and 6 times more just to start having a chance with some int fans.
As soon as companies start investing in purchase inclusion around the world, it's over for some of you. Many will have to rethink whether they will be able to resell and will need to reduce the quantity!
It's no wonder that many groups want to have international success and not just in Korea. It's no wonder that small groups invest their restricted capital in the international market more than in the national one. If SM wanted to invest Riize into the international public, they would never need anything from Koreans again.
Btw I'm the poorest in my collector group of friends in America and I even have some cards and products that a lot of Koreans can't afford because it's too expensive 🤔 so does all this amount of things they buy really mean purchasing power? Really mean that they "can" more than us?