Rakuten set to launch new UK e-commerce site

Japanese e-commerce company Rakuten looks set to launch an e-commerce website in the UK in October.

According to a document sent to internet marketplace traders and published by internet selling blog TameBay, Rakuten will launch its Rakuten.co.uk site in October, which will run alongside Play.com (owned by Rakuten) until early 2015, when Play.com will close.

Rakuten, which also owns e-reading company Kobo, bought Play.com for £25m in September 2011. Shortly afterwards, Play.com closed its direct-to-consumer business to concentrate on its third party marketplace offering. However now it seems Play.com is no longer taking on new traders and Rakuten.co.uk will replace it instead.

A spokesperson for Rakuten in the UK said: "The Rakuten Group has taken the strategic decision to move all its e-commerce marketplace businesses onto one global platform.  The global e-commerce marketplace platform creates enormous benefits to retailers and customers alike as they gain access to global marketplace products and customers plus all the advantages that a single platform brings. As a result, Rakuten has accelerated the move to the global platform in its European subsidiaries with the launch of Rakuten.co.uk in October this year. This is hugely exciting, and will strongly support future growth of the marketplace model and Rakuten within the UK and Europe."
 
The company confirmed Play.com will continue to operate through 2014, but will be replaced by Rakuten.co.uk website in quarter one 2015. "The UK team are working hard with our global colleagues to deliver Rakuten.co.uk and will keep you updated on our progress,” a spokesperson said.
 
The commercial pitch document sent by Rakuten to traders said: “We are launching Rakuten.co.uk in October 2014. A brand new and exciting marketplace in the UK powered by the global potential of the Rakuten group. We’re introducing a new trading platform (RMSg) to power this website. We’d like you to join us.”

The document goes onto explain that “commission rates and trading terms are different for both platforms (Play.com and Rakuten.co.uk) and are platform specific.” It offers traders a free subscription to trade on the site for six months if they join on or before 1st October or three months free if they join between October 1st and 31st. The document lists “books and audiobooks” among the products Rakuten.co.uk will vend.

Many booksellers use third party marketplaces on Amazon, Ebay and Play.com to sell books as a way of earning extra revenue. Bertrams’ online bookseller Wordery launched by selling books in this way before opening its direct-to-consumer website.

Rakuten – the Amazon of Japan - is Japan’s largest e-commerce company, controlled by Japan's fourth-richest man - Hiroshi Mikitani.

The company has today (5th August) also released its second quarter trading results, which said operating profit at Rakuten had dropped 9.9% due to weaker trading volumes on its Internet finance platform.

The company acquired Viber mobile phone messaging app in February for $900m (£53m) as part of Mikitani's strategy to boost overseas purchases to broaden Rakuten's businesses. Subscribers to the app now exceed 490 million.