Rakuten opens flagship store on South Korea’s e-marketplace 11STREET

Japan’s e-commerce giant Rakuten Inc. has opened an online flagship store on 11STREET, one of South Korea’s leading online marketplaces.

It said store aims to provide South Korean consumers with popular Japanese merchandise and
will feature a variety of fashion goods, beauty, and sports products.

“11STREET is a vibrant and innovative online marketplace and we’re excited to be partnering with them on this new cross-border initiative,” said Ryoji Yasutome, Vice Senior Manager Cross Border Trading at Rakuten.

The South Korean e-marketplace has a global network of 260,000 sellers, small merchants, brand names, department stores and supermarket chains serving 23 million registered members in the home market and abroad.

Shoppers reportedly spend $6 billion annually on its sites.

“Korean consumer demand for high quality Japanese and international goods continues to grow at a double figure rate,” said Joon Young Park, Senior VP at 11STREET. “Through our partnership with Rakuten, we are able to offer our customers a more exciting cross-border shopping experience with a larger selection of popular products from Japan.”

Moving forward, Rakuten will introduce products to 11STREET customers from categories such as health, living, kitchen, and hobby items and will continue to expand the product line-up over the coming months.

The two companies said they will also jointly provide support services to participating merchants such as translation, listings, merchandising advice, shipping and customer support.