Rakuten's CEO on Humanizing E-Commerce: Discovery Service for FIU Libraries. - 3 views
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Amazon and many other companies. I think of those competitors as vending machines: They are hyper-efficient supermarkets with standardized offerings
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If you go to a supermarket or a McDonald's in Japan, you'll find an extremely high level of hospitality and customer service -- in contrast to the atmosphere in most Western markets, where customers are much more focused on speed and convenience.
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Today Rakuten is the world's third-largest marketplace for e-commerce, behind Amazon and eBay.
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The article discusses how a service-based approach to e-commerce has tremendous value. The article focus on how Rakuten choose to infuse hospitality services, normally reserved for brick & mortar establishments on internet based business. Affording them the opportunity to generate profits by having access to this type of infrastructure at a fraction of the cost than if delivered in a traditional format.
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I enjoyed reading this article and learning more about Rakuten. Their business approach seems valuable particularly for the culture it serves. Being that he is familiar with Japanese culture and their preference for an interpersonal approach, Hiroshi Mikitani the CEO of Rakuten was able to veer from the norm of a standardized and process-oriented approach and build a successful business. Rakuten platform allows allows hotels to set up so they can edit their pages themselves and tell their own stories, which allows the hotels to make a connection with customers.