Tokyo, April 6, 2015 – Rakuten, Inc. today announced that it will offer a variety of Rakuten Group services, such as eBooks and Rakuten Super Points, at STORY STORY, a combined bookstore, café and variety store complex to be opened by Yurindo Co., Ltd. on the tenth floor of the Odakyu Department Store Shinjuku Main Store on April 24, 2015. As part of the company’s collaborations with bookstores, Rakuten will provide visitors to the store with a highly convenient service combining both its online and offline services, while supporting the revitalization of bookstores.
At the store, customers will be able to enjoy eBooks on the more than 20 Kobo eBook readers and Kobo Arc 7HD tablets available for use in the store. The café within the store will offer a range of popular sweets from Rakuten Ichiba, which customers can also take home. In addition, a variety of seasonal and fashionable select items from Rakuten Ichiba will also be sold at the store. Visitors to the café can use their R-Point Card to earn and spend Rakuten Super Points when paying*1. Customers will also be able to earn Rakuten Super Points when visiting the store by using Rakuten Check, a free app offered by Spotlight Inc., a member company of Rakuten Group, which rewards users with Rakuten Super Points for visiting certain locations.
In addition, customers will be able to make use of the Rakuten Books quick delivery service at the store to order books that are currently out of stock, which can be delivered to the customer in as little as one day*2. Previously, it would take from three days to one week for a bookstore to obtain books for a customer, but by reducing the time for delivery, this service allows the bookstore to respond to the needs of customers for a wide selection of titles as well as speedy service.
To date, Rakuten has undertaken a variety of different initiatives in cooperation with other companies out of a desire to revitalize bookstores and the publishing industry as a whole. Rakuten will lend its support to creating appealing stores that an ever greater number of customers will visit by harnessing Rakuten Group services at them in the future.
*1 The R-Point Card can only be used when making payments at the café. By presenting their R-Point Card when paying, customers can receive one Rakuten Super Point for every 100 yen they spend (excluding tax; customers can choose to receive either Rakuten Super Points or Odakyu Points).
*2 Limited to cases where the book is in stock at Rakuten Books.
