Gmarket, Rakuten sign agreement to boost cross-border trading

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Gmarket (www.gmarket.co.kr), Korea’s largest e-commerce shopping mall, and Rakuten, Japan’s largest Internet shopping mall retailer, have signed an agreement to boost cross-border trading by local merchants in both countries.

Henry Chun, head of Gmarket, and Masato Takahashi, managing executive officer, Rakuten, attended the signing ceremony in Tokyo to support cross-border trade of Gmarket and Rakuten sellers.

In Japan, Gmarket will launch an online flagship store on Rakuten Ichiba featuring mini-shops that will offer Korea’s diverse fashion and beauty products to Rakuten’s membership base of over 100 million users. At the time of launch, these will include over 200 items of women’s fashion and 100 items of Korean road-shop (local small- and medium-sized) cosmetic brands, and both Rakuten and Gmarket have high expectations of future growth.

Gmarket and Rakuten will provide services to participating merchants such as translation, listings, merchandizing advice, and customer support. When a consumer purchases a product on their local site, the order will be processed in a designated fulfillment center in the country where the merchant is located and products will be delivered directly to the consumer.

In Korea, Rakuten will launch an online flagship store on Gmarket, and offer products on its curated commerce service G9, offering Korean consumers even greater opportunities to purchase unique merchandise from Rakuten’s extensive lineup of Japanese merchants. From the broad variety of products offered by the more than 44,000 merchants on Rakuten in Japan, Korean consumers will enjoy high-quality products including beauty, toys, hobby items and sporting goods.

Chun explained: “As the demand for Korean apparel and cosmetic products is rising rapidly in Japan, we decided to join forces with Rakuten in order to introduce the diverse products of Gmarket sellers to Japanese consumers.” He added, “The deal will pave the way for Korean small fashion and cosmetic brands who have been struggling to introduce their unique, high-quality products to consumers worldwide, to increase their exports to Japan.”

Takahashi said “Rakuten is delighted to announce this collaboration between the leading internet shopping mall retailers of both Japan and Korea, as another step on the path toward more active and profitable cross-border trading for merchants, small and large, of both countries.”

The collaboration will begin with Gmarket’s featured shops opening on Rakuten Ichiba’s Japan site and Rakuten opening on Gmarket. Expansion of the product line-ups on both sites will continue over the coming months with collaborative merchandising by Gmarket and Rakuten.