Consumer-to-Consumer Marketplace Apps Rakuma and FRIL to Merge under new Rakuma brand

Tokyo, February 7, 2018 – Rakuten, Inc. today announced that its consumer-to-consumer (C2C) marketplace apps Rakuma, operated by Rakuten, and FRIL, operated by Rakuten subsidiary Fablic, inc., will be integrated on February 26. The merged service will be relaunched with new Rakuma branding.

Rakuma is used by a broad range of consumers, centering on men and women in their 30s, while FRIL, which was Japan’s first C2C mobile e-commerce app, is highly popular among women in their teens and 20s trading in categories such as fashion and cosmetics.   

As a result of the integration, the two services will be transformed into a single platform that will bring together a greater number of users and provide a richer lineup of products. Integration will also allow for improved efficiency in management and marketing initiatives. The new platform will offer enhanced safety and security by combining each of the services’ expertise in detecting listings of illegal items and effective communication with users. Through increased collaboration with other Rakuten Group services and leveraging of the Group’s customer base of approximately 93 million members, the new Rakuma will aim to become the leading consumer-to-consumer marketplace app in Japan.

The integration process
Following the integration, users and data will be consolidated on the current FRIL platform (which will be rebranded Rakuma). Existing FRIL users will be able to continue to use their app as they do at the moment, while users of the current Rakuma service will be asked to migrate to FRIL. By using a service migration tool^*1, current Rakuma users will be able to transfer their ratings history data and any items currently offered for sale on the service to FRIL. From March this year, the functions available on the current Rakuma service are scheduled to be gradually reduced^*2, ahead of the full closure of the service planned in 2019.

*1 In order to use the service migration tool, please download the current version of the FRIL app.
*2 The detailed timetable for reduction of functions is scheduled to be announced within the service at the end of February.

Zero-yen selling fee to continue
Rakuten plans to continue to offer the highly praised 0 yen selling fee that is currently available on both Rakuma and FRIL in order to continue to provide opportunities for more users to enjoy low cost trading on the app.

Overview of the new Rakuma
・Launch date (integration date): February 26, 2018
・URL: https://fril.jp/new_rakuma
・Logos: