In Japan, there's no escaping Rakuten. Since its 1997 founding, the shopping-website operator has become much more than an Amazon.com look-alike-it's expanded into sports, financial services, even family planning.
When Rakuten's pro baseball or soccer teams win a game, the 90 million members of the company's loyalty program, including its 11 million credit card users, get extra points for purchases on its primary online marketplace, Ichiba. They also get points for using a Rakuten Bank debit card, signing up for Rakuten Broadband, booking a salon through Rakuten Beauty, hiring a mechanic through the company's vehicle inspection service, or buying a policy from Rakuten Insurance. Couples can plan their nuptials through Rakuten Wedding, or use the Rakuten smartphone app Beauty°C Navigator to predict the best time to try and conceive a child, based on the would-be mother's body temperature.
Partly as a result of this diversification, one in four online purchases in Japan takes place on Ichiba-impressive even by the standards of Alibaba's Taobao in China. "We invented this marketplace model, and our international competitors basically followed," says Hiroshi Mikitani, Rakuten's founder and chief executive officer.
Outside Japan, however, Rakuten barely rates. It's almost unknown in the U.S. and Europe, where Amazon rules, and Alibaba had already outpaced it in China well before Mikitani's partnership with Baidu, China's Google, collapsed in 2012. Rakuten's limited footprint is a serious problem given Japan's declining population and lackluster economy. So Mikitani, like many Japanese CEOs, is increasing efforts to expand abroad, buying foreign startups and investing in others.
- See more at: http://newsonjapan.com/html/newsdesk/article/112099.php
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