Rakuten has announced the acquisition of Buy.com today. The expansion to the USA can now begin:
When I covered Rakuten back in July last year, I called it “the biggest e-commerce site you never heard of”. And in fact, the eponymous Japanese company behind the B2B2C market place (which is currently used by over 33,000 Japanese merchants) generated less than 10% of total sales overseas at that time. But that’s about to change very soon.
Rakuten (which, in its home market, is much bigger than Amazon Japan) today announced [PDF] it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire California-based shopping portal Buy.com for $250 million next month. The all-cash deal will be handled by Rakuten USA (headquartered in Boston), which is expected to merge with Buy.com in the process.
Rakuten in Japan counts 64 million members.
– read the rest in my article on TechCrunch:
Buy.com Gets Acquired By Japanese E-Commerce Giant Rakuten For $250 Million
