Guide To Sell On Rakuten Marketplace - Inventory and Order Management

What is Rakuten?

Rakuten.com, formerly called Buy.com, makes it simple for sellers to become part of the Rakuten Marketplace and to start selling more. Rakuten was founded in 1999 and was primarily a marketplace intended for Japanese sellers and customers only, but now its one of the major worldwide online marketplaces. After learning the Rakuten basics, sellers will need to have a valid credit card, tax ID, and checking account information for payments.

Why Sell On Rakuten?

Different customers. People who buy at Rakuten are usually not the same ones who shop other marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, Newegg, Overstock, Sears, etc. Such loyalty might bring long-term relationships through customer satisfaction.

The marketplace is not a competitor. On Rakuten, you will only compete with other merchants. The marketplace doesnt sell anything by itself and encourages its users to compete not only by price, but by their hospitality and customer service as well.

Selling more with higher prices. The above mentioned type of competing is important to the customers as much as to the marketplace, so if you shine with your ability to please the customers, theyll buy from you again even if your price is slightly higher.

What fees does Rakuten Charge?

Naturally, one of the first things that sellers will want to know is what fees they will have to pay whenever they are selling through an online site. Rakuten does not actually charge any listing fees to put items up on the site. However, the sellers will pay a commission of .99 for each item they sell, as well as a percentage of the overall product price.

The percentage will vary based on the type of product it is, but it will generally range from around 5% to 14.5%. The fees through Rakuten and other ecommerce websites tend to change over time, so sellers should always look at the latest information directly from the company to understand just how much they will have to pay on the items they sell. Another thing to consider is that they base the rates on the entire transaction cost, including the shipping and handling.

Pricing the Items with Rakuten.com

Sellers must price the item, including shipping, at the same price that they are selling on their own personal ecommerce website or other sales channels. The reason Rakuten requires this is simple. They want business, and if a customer can get a product from you cheaper on another site, then thats just what they will do. Keeping the price identical on all of the sales channels creates equal footing for all of the online sites giving you virtual retail space in which to sell.

Listing Items and Filling Orders

After receiving approval, the sellers can start listing products on the site. Sellers will have two different options when it comes to putting their items up for sale on the ecommerce website. They can list their products one at a time, or they can list in bulk. Depending on the number of items you need to add and the nature of those products, the method you choose for uploading will vary. Those who have a large number of similar products will likely want to use the bulk upload option. Still, it is important to make each listing as unique as possible.

Once a seller receives an order, they have two days to ship the items in the order. Sellers will receive notification at the time of purchase, so they can start the shipping process immediately. Using order management software and shipping management software can help to make it much easier to keep track of all of the sales that are coming through.

Shift to Rakuten

A lot of people started to sell on Amazon, but eventually expanded their reach on other platforms and started selling on eBay and Rakuten and other less famous but still viable options. The Rakuten marketplace may be considered a gem out of all of the choices. For the same reason, many retailers believe they have a chance to have more stable sales on Amazon UK rather than on Amazon US due to the overcrowded US market. So when you consider your options outside of US, Rakuten's marketplace stands out as a solid pick for your marketing operations if you can establish yourself on Rakuten you can hope for some bright future and excellent long-term prospects for your business.

To establish yourself on Rakuten marketplace you have to select a platform that will not restrict you to anything and will support international transactions. On top of that, you need to put in some serious research on the niche of yours and see how you can gain traction with your advertising and research your competition entirely so that you know their strong and weak points. Once you’re geared with this analytics data, you can build your marketing campaign with precise understanding how it’s going to look beside what it’s already there. A Rakuten seller has opportunity to sell his product and create a unique store-front and prepare astonishing advertising. All that freedom has to be reflected in your ability to represent your retailers as best as you can. You can design anything for your Rakuten marketplace, and you’ll be much surprised with a variety of options that Rakuten marketplace will allow you to use.

What kind of products are being sold on Rakuten?

Practically anything. You can find a variety of products being displayed on Rakuten, with the majority of options being clothing and apparel as a spectrum of different brands are represented. If you own a well-renowned brand that has a substantial number of customers and is well-organized for international retailers, Rakuten will display your products if you express your intentions to become their partner. The more successful your brand is - the higher the chances that Rakuten employees will be glad to help you with every step of the way. On top of that, brand owners have a serious advantage because they are selling directly to their clients and tend to have a larger number of products available. This allows them to have better profit margins than regular resellers. Regarding product categories, you will still have to look into it yourself and carefully search through all of your competitors to determine the best way of integrating into the platform. Even if you notice that your niche is crowded with a variety of different retailers, you can find an edge by adjusting your advertising or your marketing to outperform them. However, there are lots of niches that would welcome a dedicated retailer with excellent marketing and much better prospects than clothing or other popular product categories.

Regarding your product listings, the Rakuten marketplace will require a high level of concentration and peculiar approach from you. If you have experience with selling on Amazon, you should be familiar with basic product descriptions. On Rakuten, even for a $ 30 item retailers post highly detailed specifications, as well as high-quality pictures and videos of how to use the product. Consumers in Japan want to see all of the points and details of your product and are one of the most considerate and careful buyers in the world. They also expect only top quality from any offers on Rakuten, so they look deep into any information about the product they want to find the best option available.They want the best option regarding quality rather than pricing. Even if your offer is cheaper than others, you still need to include a detailed description of the product so you can match the expectations of Japanese buyers. Even if you believe that you are selling something elementary and understandable for everyone you should still include every possible description of your product so that no questions are left unanswered. The more information your listing has, the higher the chances of getting increased demand for your product on the Rakuten marketplace.

Final preparations

When you are done with researching your niche and completing the most detailed description of your product, you will have to get authenticated by Rakuten employees. This process is called brand screening and business verification. Basically, you will have to list all the data connected to your business and how you want to use it on Rakuten. Once your submission is checked (usually takes around a month) you will be given a product listing form that you will fill with your product. After that you need to complete the rest of the settings to be able to sell on Rakuten. The only advice I can give at this point is to make sure you state all of your business points for Rakuten, so the process of building trust starts right away. The more information you give about the origins of your company and your brand the more you can hope for a warm welcome.

Listing the origins of your brand and your marketing offer might turn into one of your strategies to raise your sales on Rakuten since doing that builds trust with the Japanese consumers.

If you continue building your reputation and get a lot of positive feedback from your customers, Rakuten can become a fantastic way for you to retail online. Merchants that have a high demand for their products can always use Rakuten as a portal to the highly developed ecommerce market. Lots of opportunities can be found in this market which will, in turn, make your customers happy.

INVENTORY SYNC

SYNC INVENTORY

Selling on Rakuten is easy, just add your inventory once and let us take it from there. Inventory is adjusted automatically and synchronized across all your listings. Set rules to control your available inventory on each channel. View inventory history, set product condition, view BIN location, setup multiple warehouses, manage kits and bundles, and even sync FTP and Amazon FBA inventory automatically.

MULTI WAREHOUSE INVENTORY

For clients operating out of multiple warehouses, we aggregate all inventory into a single tracking platform allowing simple, real-time inventory tracking across all the of the company's warehouses, real or virtual, sellable and non-sellable.

QTY MANAGEMENT

Don't waste time constantly keeping tabs on stock accuracy. The platform maintains product quantity with a single centralized platform. Push to all your marketplaces and websites, when a transaction occurs on one marketplace the entire system is updated.

INVENTORY RULES

Refine your multi-channel strategy with customized inventory rules for each channel. Reflect scarcity, show heavy stock, or always keep a reserve. You can also keep true inventory in sync, while forcing a low inventory to sync to eBay not to exceed your eBay limits while making sure your true inventory is not affected.

SHARED INVENTORY

Multiple companies operating off a shared inventory and selling on Rakuten.com can utilize tools to maintain the characteristics and branding of each individual company while operating off a single management software.

DEEP INTEGRATION

Take advantage of even the smallest features come to expect from your channels. From eBay listing settings to Rakuten search keywords, we cover them all.