We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Eugene Kim. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Eugene below.

Eugene, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What were some of the most unexpected problems you’ve faced in your business and how did you resolve those issues?

The biggest unexpected problem I faced was losing the marketplace where I’d built my entire business overnight. I had been selling jewelry on a third-party platform for five years – over 179,000 orders, a 4.9 rating from more than 40,000 reviews, and royal customer base. Then one day, my account was suspended without warning. Years of work gone in an instant.

The hardest part was not the financial hit. It was the emotional weight of it. I had poured everything into building that reputation, and suddenly I had no way to reach my customers. No storefront, no reviews, no visibility. It felt like starting from absolute zero.

But I realized that what I’d actually built over those five years wasn’t a store on someone else’s platform – it was knowledge, supplier relationships, and a reputation for quality. Those things didn’t disappear. So I launched my own website, Vital Piercing (vitalpiercing.com), and committed to doing it the right way. I invested in having out implant-grade titanium independently lab tested to ASTM-F136 standards, built out educational content to help customers make safe jewelry choices, and focused on the one thing I could control: offering the highest quality jewelry backed by real transparency.

It’s still a rebuilding process, but the experience taught me something important – never build your entire business on a platform you don’t own. Having my own store means I control my brand, my customer relationships, and my future. What felt like the worst thing that could have happened actually pushed me to build something strong and more sustainable than what I had before.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m Eugene, the founder of Vital Piercing (vitalpiercing.com). We specialize in implant-grade body jewelry — nose rings, septum rings, cartilage earrings, belly rings, threadless flat-back studs, and more — all made from materials like ASTM F-136 titanium, surgical steel, and 14K solid gold.

I got into this industry because I saw a real problem: people were putting cheap, unverified metals into their bodies and dealing with infections, reactions, and irritation — often without realizing the jewelry was the cause. A lot of what’s sold online as “hypoallergenic” or “surgical grade” is neither. I wanted to offer something better.

What sets Vital Piercing apart is transparency. We have our titanium independently lab tested to ASTM F-136 standards, and we publish the results on our website. We don’t just say our jewelry is implant-grade — we prove it. That matters when the product goes inside your body.

Beyond the jewelry itself, we’ve built out a library of educational piercing guides covering everything from healing times and aftercare to jewelry sizing and material safety. I believe customers deserve honest, accurate information — not marketing fluff — so they can make safe choices for their piercings.

Before launching Vital Piercing, I spent five years selling body jewelry online and fulfilled over 179,000 orders with a 4.9-star rating from more than 40,000 reviews. That experience taught me what customers actually need: safe materials, accurate sizing, honest product descriptions, and someone who genuinely cares about their piercing experience.

What I’m most proud of is the trust we’ve built. When a customer tells me they finally found jewelry that doesn’t irritate their piercing, or that one of our guides helped them through a healing issue — that’s why I do this.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I had to unlearn the idea that a third-party marketplace would always be there for me. For five years, I built my business on someone else’s platform. I had the sales numbers, the reviews, the repeat customers — and I assumed that track record protected me. It didn’t. When I lost access to that platform overnight, I realized I’d been building on rented land the entire time.

The lesson I had to unlearn was that convenience equals security. Marketplaces make it easy to start selling — they handle the traffic, the trust, the infrastructure — but you never truly own your business there. You don’t own your customer list, you don’t control your brand presentation, and you can lose everything based on a decision you had no part in.

Now I run Vital Piercing on my own website, and I approach everything differently. Every customer relationship, every email subscriber, every piece of content — it’s mine. It’s more work, but it’s real. If I could go back and tell myself one thing, it would be: start building your own platform from day one, even if the marketplace is working. Don’t wait until you’re forced to.

We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.

I started out selling on a third-party marketplace and spent five years there — over 179,000 orders and a 4.9-star rating from 40,000+ reviews. Now I sell exclusively on my own website, vitalpiercing.com, built on Shopify. I’ve experienced both sides, so I can speak honestly about the pros and cons.

Pros of selling on a marketplace: The traffic is already there. You don’t have to convince people to visit — millions of buyers are already searching on the platform every day. For a new seller with no audience, that’s incredibly powerful. The barrier to entry is low, and you can start generating sales almost immediately without knowing anything about website design, SEO, or advertising. It’s the fastest way to validate a product and start building experience.

Cons of selling on a marketplace: You don’t own anything. You don’t own your customer list, you don’t control how your brand is presented, and your entire business exists at the platform’s discretion. The reviews you spent years earning, the repeat customers you built relationships with — all of it lives on their platform, not yours. Fees also add up quickly, and you’re constantly competing with other sellers on price rather than quality or trust. And the biggest risk most sellers don’t think about: you can lose access to your store without warning, and there’s very little recourse when that happens.

After losing my marketplace store, I rebuilt on Shopify and I wouldn’t go back. Yes, driving your own traffic is harder and slower. But every customer, every email subscriber, every review — it’s mine. I control my brand, I publish my own lab test results, and I build real relationships with my customers. My advice to any e-commerce seller: use marketplaces to get started, but build your own site in parallel from day one. Don’t wait until you’re forced to.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://vitalpiercing.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shopvitalpiercing/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shopvitalpiercing/
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/company/vitalpiercing
• Other: Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/vitalpiercing/

Image Credits

Vital Piercing