Let’s talk about the difference between Rakuten International Edition and Rakuten Local Edition

The difference between Rakuten International Edition and Rakuten Local Edition is that they target different consumers and stores.

1. Consumers are different

The local version of Rakuten is aimed at Japanese people. Rakuten International Edition is aimed at the international market of Chinese people.

2. Different merchants

The local version of Rakuten has more than 40,000 merchants. It is eBay for Japanese people and only supports Japanese interface and Japanese domestic addresses. Most of the local large enterprises, general stores, chain stores, physical stores, drugstores, and old stores have opened stores in Lotte.

Many special offers, limited-time discounts, clearance sales, 50% off at the end of the year, 20 times membership points, direct cash redemption of membership points, lucky bags, limited editions, bundled discounts, etc. are all only available in the local version. The access rules are very high, so you basically don’t have to worry about fakes.

Rakuten Global is an overseas sales platform for more than 10,000 of the 40,000 stores in the local version that support direct mail overseas. The international version only displays these 10,000 stores. Merchants' selection of products, types and prices is much smaller than the local version. Some stores accept UnionPay and Alipay payments, and can be shipped directly to China.

Extended information

1. Rakuten is a B2B2C shopping platform owned by Rakuten Co., Ltd. and is the largest electronics shopping street in Japan. The JASDAQ listed company of Rakuten Co., Ltd. to which it belongs was founded in 1997 and is a member of the Nippon Keidan. Through a series of active mergers and acquisitions, Japan Rakuten's current industries include Rakuten Bank, securities companies, professional baseball teams, travel websites, etc.

2. According to official data from Rakuten Japan, in 2013, more than 10,000 of the 40,000 stores on the Rakuten website participated in the direct mail service to China, accounting for 25%. In addition, Nandu reporters also learned during the interview that Rakuten’s backend data on JD.com, Kaola flagship store and its own Rakuten International Market platform show that the business growth brought by Chinese consumers has doubled, especially last year’s Double Ten During the first activity period, business grew by double digits year-on-year.

Reference: Baidu Encyclopedia-Rakuten Co., Ltd.