Walmart and Rakuten – New Strategic E-commerce Alliance announced

Walmart making a major step in E-commerce market

Walmart makes an alliance with Rakuten in an effort to launch an online grocery delivery service to Japan. Rakuten Inc is a reputed e-commerce service in Japan and the latest achievement is to improve the digital standing in the international market. This news is official, as it has been confirmed by the company’s blog post.

E-Commerce Service commence in the later part of 2018

Walmart subsidiary Seiyu Group and Rakuten will work as a partner to offer grocery delivery services in Japan. The service is planned to commence in the second half of 2018 and will be known as Rakuten Seiyu Netsuper. According to the report of Yano Research Institute, $19 billion spent on the food deliveries between April 2016 and March 2017. This is one of the reasons, why Walmart is creating plenty of opportunities with the collaboration of Rakuten to make an impact. The new offers are not starting from a beginning level, as the orders can be fulfilled from the existing Seiyu stores and fulfillment center. The offers include produce, meal kits and other products from merchants. To boost these services, Rakuten will create a site to utilize AI and data analytics.

US can get access to Kobo’s e-books and e-readers

Walmart will also sell e-books and e-readers from Kobo, a division of Rakuten. This ultimately makes them a mass retail partner of Kobo in the United States. Millions of e-books and e-readers will be available in the later part of this year. One can get access to these applications through Walmart and Kobo app. This is a major success, but so far Amazon is the leader with 83% of e-book sales in the US, according to the report in February 2017. Till then, Kobo accounted just 3%. With the latest deal, Kobo is in a position reduce the gap. The gap is much smaller in Canada, as Kobo made 25% of the sales and Amazon took 57% of the market.

Walmart is trying to improve its e-commerce standing with strategic partnerships with the prominent companies around the world. With technological developments and e-commerce capabilities, they are growing constantly. The new agreement is a major step after they previously partnered with Google to sell its products on Google Express and Google Home.