Japan’s top online shopping mall Rakuten, has officially announced its launch in Singapore.
With the launch of its Singapore site, Singapore shoppers now can enjoy shopping access to more than 120 Japanese and local merchants, featuring over 40,000 products across more than ten categories including fashion, food, health and beauty products, electronics, kids’ and babies’ products, toys and games, livingware, furniture and decoration, books, pet products, and vehicle accessories.
Some of its merchants include seafood purveyor Kuriya Fish Market, Yokohama-based confectioner VANILLABEANS, top online Japanese drugstore Kenko.com, as well as GALSTAR, a fashion store with an extensive collection catering to a female crowd.
“At Rakuten, we believe ‘Shopping is Entertainment’ – our idea of service is to provide shopping as a form of entertainment in people’s lives. To do that, we make sure we have many merchants providing an exciting range of quality products. To make shopping even more enjoyable, we will also be bringing our hallmark Rakuten Super Sale – a big discount festive event – to our Singapore customers later this year.” says Mr Okamoto Shingo, head of Singapore e-Commerce Business, Rakuten.
To celebrate the launch of its Singapore operations, Rakuten is offering free delivery from January 14 to 17. The e-commerce giant looks to acquire and host some 300 merchants for its Singapore site by the end of this year.
Other e-commerce site in Singapore
Other than Japanese giant Rakuten setting up in Singapore, other e commerce players are also actively acquiring customers in the 5.5 million population island. In September last year, China’s e commerce leader Taobao, also set up their base here.
Alibaba’s e-commerce business unit Taobao Marketplace opened an office in Singapore to serve as the company’s Southeast Asia hub, supporting its customers and presence in this region. The company had over 280,000 registered users here in Singapore when it launched, a relatively small amount comparing to its over 500 million registered users globally.
Another popular e commerce site in Singapore is Zalora, launched by German’s Rocket Internet. Among Rakuten, Taobao and Zalora, Zalora is the company which set foot in Singapore for the longest. It now features over 50,000 product listings on its website, and constantly runs promotional discounts to attract new customers. Zalora has also expanded regional to most of the countries in Southeast Asia, making it one of the leaders in the online shopping space.
With the intense competition among these online shopping sites, we definitely expect a price war among them in a bid to capture Singapore’s online shopping industry.
Who are you rooting for?
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