A former Softbank employee is charged with violating the Unfair Competition Prevention Act for illegally taking Softbank’s technical information to Rakuten Mobile, his new employer. It was the information on 5G, ultra-fast and high-capacity communication standard. The first trial was held at the Tokyo District Court on December 7. Reportedly, the former employee stated that […]

Japanese eCommerce platform provider Rakuten announced in the summer of 2019 that free shipping will be offered for purchases over 3,980 JPY (about 36 USD). Rakuten is expecting to achieve this by asking the shops on their platform to bear the shipping costs.  Rakuten is explaining the intense competition with Amazon and others, and asking for […]

Recently, alternative lending has been attracting attention in Japan. Alternative lending is a business loan option that falls outside of a traditional bank loan. For example, a Japanese electronic commerce and Internet company Rakuten gives a loan to its online shopping site owners using daily accounting data, and an accounting software company Yayoi also provides […]

Japanese home-delivery service companies are faced with challenges. In a sense, e-commerce players are the same. Transaction volume has increased due to expansion of e-commerce such as Amazon, but it is difficult for home-delivery service companies to generate a good profit. The requirements of nationwide delivery, same-day or next-day delivery, and quantity discount, and also […]