The online shopping venture between Rakuten Inc of Japan and President Chain Store Corp (
The venture is Rakuten Inc's first virtual shopping mall to operate outside Japan, and the company hopes to persuade small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to adopt its e-commerce platform.
"The company has faith that the collaboration between Rakuten's management know-how and President Chain Store's retail platform will help boost Taiwan's economy," said Yuichi Ejiri, president of Taiwan Rakuten Ichiba Inc.
NT$174 million
President Chain Store, the nation's largest convenience store chain with 4,600 7-Eleven stores, signed a NT$174 million (US$5.63 million) agreement on Nov. 29 last year with Rakuten to create an online shopping venture in Taiwan.
Rakuten owns 51 percent of the venture, while President Chain Store owns the rest. Taiwan Rakuten Ichiba Inc expects to break even in 2010, with its number of virtual stores expanding to 3,000 within three years.
"We expect the site to have signed up more than 100 virtual stores before the launch of operations in mid-May and we expect this number to grow by 100 stores per month," said Alex Lin (
niche markets
To avoid competition with Yahoo-Kimo Inc (雅虎奇摩) and PChome eBay Co (露天市集), two of the nation's major shopping Web sites, Lin said his company would explore niche markets, such as SMEs that have not yet opened online businesses.
"Taiwan's online shopping market has enormous growth potential, as it only accounts for 3 percent of the domestic retail sector," Lin said.
Founded in February 1997, Tokyo-based Rakuten had 3,283 employees and 22,677 virtual stores at the end of last month, with up to 21 million items for sale online.
Shares of President Chain Store declined by NT$0.9, or 1.84 percent, to NT$48 on the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
From the customer’s perspective, car rental is a straightforward business. The only uncertainty is whether the hire company will charge you for the scratch they discover when you hand back the vehicle. Hertz Global Holdings Inc’s bankruptcy protection filing on Friday last week was a reminder that today even the simplest business models are underpinned by a lot more financial complexity than meets the eye. The proximate cause of Hertz’s demise was of course the sudden collapse in bookings caused by COVID-19 travel restrictions. The company’s monthly revenue last month fell 73 percent year-on-year, a shortfall that even the most resilient
Uber Technologies Inc, Lyft Inc and Airbnb Inc have slashed thousands of jobs. Salesforce.com Inc and Visa Inc are letting employees work remotely for months; Twitter Inc and Square Inc are allowing them to do so for good. For the companies’ hometown of San Francisco, the moves are early signs of a dire blow. In a city with a long history of booms, busts and natural calamities, the COVID-19 pandemic has suddenly upended nearly a decade of prosperity. While municipalities across the US are grappling with economic fallout from the virus, San Francisco stands to take a deeper hit given its high
BULK PURCHASE: The French chain and Hong Kong-based Dairy Farm International reached a deal covering 224 stores, which is expected to be finalized by year’s end Carrefour SA yesterday announced it would acquire Wellcome Taiwan Co (惠康百貨) for 97 million euros (US$108.33 million), and bring all the Wellcome supermarkets (頂好超市) and Jasons Market Place stores nationwide under its banner within 12 months of the deal closing. The France-based hypermarket chain reached an agreement with Hong Kong-based Dairy Farm International Holdings (牛奶國際控股), the pan-Asian retailer that launched Wellcome Taiwan in 1987. The transaction involves 199 Wellcome supermarkets, which have average sales areas of 420m2 and 25 high-end Jasons Market Place stores, which have an average sales area of 820m2, as well as a warehouse in Taoyuan, Carrefour Taiwan (家樂福)
‘ONE-STOP SHOP’: A Miaoli official said that the factory in the Jhunan section of the Hsinchu Science Park would create more than 1,000 jobs and boost prosperity A new high-end IC packaging and testing plant planned by contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) in Miaoli County is expected to start operations in the middle of next year, Miaoli County Commissioner Hsu Yao-chang (徐耀昌) said. Hsu wrote on Facebook that TSMC, the world’s largest pure wafer foundry operator, would invest NT$303.2 billion (US$10.1 billion) to build the plant, the largest-ever single investment in Taiwan. However, TSMC declined to disclose the financial terms of the deal, while a company board meeting on May 12 approved a spending plan worth NT$168.2 billion as part of its investment plans. Construction of the
RSS