Monday, April 1, 2013

How Rakuten, the Amazon.com of Japan, plans to make a name for itself in the US

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You might not have heard of Rakuten, but with multi-billion dollar revenues the company is the largest e-commerce site in Japan — and it's expanding with the purchase of Buy.com in 2010 and Kobo in 2011. (It also led a funding round for Pinterest last year.) Those moves are part of the company's play at gaining a larger foothold globally, but in an interview with Wired , founder and CEO Hiroshi Mikitani says that the approach that brought success in Japan will be key to further expansion. "We are a bazaar. We are not a supermarket," Mikitani said in the interview. "We are creating a first-class shopping district instead of being a retailer ourselves." Others like eBay and increasingly Amazon are working with third party retailers, but...


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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/1/4170286/how-rakuten-plans-to-make-a-name-for-itself-in-us

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