The major French e-commerce website PriceMinister-Rakuten has launched a new logistics servicelabelled “Delivered by PriceMinister-Rakuten” after buying e-commerce logistics business, Alpha
Direct Services (ADS).PriceMinister’s parent company, the Japanese e-commerce group Rakuten, bought ADS last year tobuild up the group’s logistics expertise in France.
The new service, designed to be similar to the “Rakuten Super Logistics” service in Japan,offers centralised logistics with e-retailers being able to store, ship and manage their products,if requested, from the reception of the goods to the delivery of parcels by ADS.
The “Delivered by PriceMinister-Rakuten” service is initially available for professional onlinesellers operating so-called ‘SuperStores’ (“SuperBoutiques” in French) and is expected to becomeoperational on a larger scale in a second stage. The first retailer to benefit is the bookshopDecitre whose SuperBoutique already features the “Delivered by PriceMinister-Rakuten” label.
When a customer buys an item from Decitre on PriceMinister.com, the preparation and thetransportation of the order are carried out from ADS distribution centres in France. The deliveryto the end customer is made in accordance with the delivery method chosen by the recipient from achoice of carriers including Coliposte, Chronopost, DHL, Colis Zen, UPS, Mondial Relay, Bposte,Colis Privé, Relais Colis, etc.
The professional sellers continue to take care of the order tracking and customer relationships.The new service even has a positive impact on the customer relationship as it guarantees optimisedhandling of their order and delivery without an extra charge, according to PriceMinister.
PriceMinister also continues to maintain its ‘Purchase-Sale Guaranteed’ commitment with itsmembers profiting from the guaranteed delivery of their products handled byPriceMinister-Rakuten.
“With this evolution of our model, we help both our traders and all PriceMinister customers,”explained Olivier Mathiot, co-founder and Marketing & Communication Director at PriceMinister. “ This is another step towards better customer service from PriceMinister-Rakuten which promisesfurther enhancements in the future.”
Adrian Diaconu, ADS president, added: “This is a first step that demonstrates the many synergiesthat our companies can develop within the Rakuten group in France to provide a better service tocustomers of our e-retailers.”
Decitre managing director Guillaume Decitre commented: “We are very pleased to strengthen ourpartnership with PriceMinister-Rakuten and we are working hand in hand to constantly give moresatisfaction to our customers.”
In November last year, the Japanese e-commerce group Rakuten agreed to buy ADS to work with itsFrench e-commerce subsidiary PriceMinister and potentially expand further in Europe. Rakuten, whichclaims to be the world’s third largest e-commerce company, expects business synergies for itsglobal e-commerce marketplaces, in particular its European business including PriceMinister inFrance.
The acquisition marked Rakuten’s first logistics investment outside Japan. Rakuten has a 28.8%market share in Japan with 81 million members and over 10,000 staff. In 2012, it generated revenuesworth YEN 4,000 billion (€32.2 billion), including financial services.
PriceMinister, bought by Rakuten in 2010, is one of France’s leading e-commerce platforms with10 million visitors and 30 million visits per month. The site offers 200 million products with10,000 professional sellers and 3 000 Rakuten SuperBoutiques. The sales portal generates some30,000-50,000 transactions a day and is growing by 25% a year.
ADS offers full service e-commerce logistics, including front-end websites, order management,warehousing, fulfillment delivery and customer support. Founded in 2002 and headquartered inBeauvais, just north of Paris, ADS describes itself as ‘France’s leading e-commerce logisticsbusiness’ with over 100 clients ranging from small businesses to large well-known brands such asNestle, L’Oreal and Sarenza.
