Rakuten, Japanese electronic commerce and online retailing company based in Tokyo, were founded by Hiroshi Mikitani in 1997. Rakuten, which means ‘optimism’ in Japanese, is a company with a technological DNA and has the goal to conquer the world by empowering people and brands through innovation and technology. It is important to sell on Rakuten because it is a company that wants to deliver a very pleasant experience to its users. Rakuten believes online shopping should also be entertainment and fun for the consumers.

It has nearly 1.3 billion users worldwide who are spread across more than 70 businesses, like e-commerce, digital content, communications, and fintech. The messaging app Viber, e-book distributor Kobo, and also mobile carrier Rakuten Mobile are part of their communications group. Rakuten wants to connect with people so it is active in sponsorships to be recognized across the world. Its partnership with FC Barcelona is very famous and it contributes to reaching that goal. The company Rakuten is the largest marketplace in Japan, with nearly 20000 employees and 44000 sellers worldwide, and also operates in over 30 countries and regions.

What are the benefits to sell on Rakuten?

If you need a platform that can provide a very fast growth to your company, then you will need to work with Rakuten. Rakuten has become the first choice of many brands because it can offer several benefits to grow quickly like:

• Network: Rakuten works with a large number of e-commerce brands, marketing agencies, loyalty bonus programs, logistics, and many more, which makes it a successful environment to be part of for a merchant.
• Customization: You have the opportunity to customize your storefront to match it with your website.
• Reaching out: Rakuten enhances the reach increasing your sales rate

Things you need before starting the enrollment process

You need to register your company in either Japan or the USA if you want to sell on those Rakuten markets.

Things you need to sell on Rakuten

• Your business name
• A manufacturing ID
• Your website must comply with the GDPR rules
• Time. The approval takes about a week.
• Your products need to have barcodes (you can use UPC, EAN, JAN, ISBN)
• product feeds to upload your goods via FTP to Rakuten

What can I sell on Rakuten?

Rakuten allows you to sell a wide range of items on its platform. You can sell everything from pet, home, and car accessories to electronic, beauty products, clothing, and also office items.

Differences between Rakuten and Amazon

Do you find any similarities between Rakuten and Amazon? Yes, there are. Although, there are some differences as well.

Whilst Amazon takes care of the customer service, inventory and the sales platform for the customer, Rakuten does not. The merchants need to work on the inventory and customer service, instead, Rakuten provides a shopping platform and payment gateway support.

Other useful information about Rakuten

• Rakuten also offers a cashback (usually 5%) to push the customer base’s loyalty.
• Rakuten has a loyalty points scheme called the ‘Super Points Reward Programme’.
• Due to the GDPR standards that have been in place since 2018 Rakuten is not available for the customers who live in European Economic Area (including the UK)

Fees on Rakuten

If you desire to sell on Rakuten you are subject to fees. There are three different types of fees for a seller on Rakuten:

• Individual listing fee starting at €0.15 for each item
• Monthly account fee from €39 per month
• Category-based fee. Depending on the type of item you sell you have a commission fee between the 6% and 12%.

Hence it is very important to read carefully what you might have to pay before starting a cooperation with the giant Rakuten.

Why selling on Rakuten with Koongo is beneficial?

Koongo works with 3 branches of the Rakuten group: Rakuten, Rakuten Marketing and Rakuten France. Therefore, Koongo can help you if you sell your products on the Rakuten marketplaces.

Koongo connects your store to the Rakuten marketplace using a simple CSV or TXT product feed. In this way, you can upload your products from your store to your Rakuten catalog and update the stock information on a regular basis. Therefore, you do not risk being out of stock on the marketplace and the information is always updated with an unbeatable update frequency.

Koongo’s Advanced Features

• Advanced filtering features: You can filter almost everything to export only what is needed. From product attributes to specific keywords. With Koongo, all your attribute data can be used for advanced filtering purposes
• Category mapping features: You can map your existing categories with the ones provided by the Rakuten marketplace
• Transformation features: You can edit and transform all your catalog attribute information and data thanks to Koongo in-built transformation tools; the currency conversion and exchange rate tool, the extended conditional tools, the advanced attribute edition, and the use of regular expressions to perform a product price uplift or attribute edition automatically will definitely improve your data feed quality
• The API connection keeps all your catalog information updated and the product prices will be customized. It also manages the orders automatically and effortlessly from your Store or Koongo platforms.

As you may know, Koongo is offering full support for more than 500 marketplaces and selling channels worldwide, including Rakuten. You won’t regret giving Koongo a chance. It fully supports any existing platform from Shopify, Magento, Prestashop, CCV Shop, Woocommerce, BigCommerce, Lightspeed, and more to any 3rd party Custom Platform. You only need to sign up to check how Koongo is capable to boost your sales. There’s no risk associated if you work with Koongo because a 30 days Free Trial period is available.

For more details, you may check the Rakuten integration manual or contact us at support@koongo.com. We will be happy to help you with your Rakuten integration.

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