South Korea-based ECommerce Company – Gmarket and Japan-based Rakuten have signed a MoU for the expansion of their cross-border trade in both the countries through local merchants.
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.
Gmarket and Rakuten will provide services like translation, listings, merchandising advice, and customer support to participating merchants.
When a consumer purchases a product on their local site, the order will be processed in a designated fulfilment 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 commerce service G9, offering Korean consumer’s opportunities to purchase unique merchandise from Rakuten’s extensive line-up 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.
“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,” Henry Chun, head of Gmarket, said.
“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,” he further added.
The alliance 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.
