Rakuten Tarad.com to rebrand next year

It aims to double its e-commerce revenue while empowering Thai businesses in this segment, facilitating their sales outside the country.
Pawoot Pongvitayapanu, founder and managing director of Rakuten Tarad.com, said next year would mark a big step for the firm as it takes Thai e-commerce businesses global, especially in Asean.
“We aim to go global, so we need to change our brand to ‘Rakuten’, with the same global brand as in other countries. But it is not only branding – our infrastructure is already built to a global standard, which is already seamless the trading in other countries,” he said.
Currently at Rakuten Tarad.com, around 2,000 merchants generate commissions as revenue for the company, while it also has almost 270,000 merchants on the old business model of Tarad.com who are charged according to space rental.
“We have changed our business model from providing space for online merchants to providing space plus e-commerce business consultancy, as well as marketing promotions. Revenue from the old business model is space rental, while revenue from the new business model is commissions,” Pawoot said.

More services
The company will launch more services to drive the growth of e-commerce, including taking its fulfilment services nationwide by next year. Currently its cash-on-delivery service covers only Bangkok.
“We will work with partners to provide fulfilment service nationwide. We will not do this by ourselves even though Rakuten [in Japan] has fulfilment services including Rakuten Logistics and Rakuten 24. By next year, we will help our merchants deliver products more easily throughout the country,” Pawoot said.
In the five years since Tarad.com merged with Rakuten, the company has enjoyed a compound annual growth rate of 1,876 per cent, he said. That is a result of adjusting business practices and changing the business model to a commission basis.
“We have embedded technologies and knowledge into e-commerce businesses to help them add value and increase sales efficiently.”
He added that expanding e-commerce to reach customers via mobile devices was another key success. Currently, around 50 per cent of its sales come through the mobile channel.
“Mobile and marketing are the key driving factor for sales. We have about 12 million members at Line. Launching promotions via Line helps boost sales a lot.”
Another change that has taken place since the 2010 Rakuten-Tarad merger is an increase in upcountry customers, as e-commerce expands nationwide and not just in Bangkok.
Credit cards remain the preferred payment method.