eBay have completed their acquisition of Giosis’ Japan business, including the Qoo10.jp platform. With the close of the transaction, eBay also has relinquished its investment in Giosis’ non-Japanese businesses. This acquisition expands eBay’s footprint in Japan, one of the largest ecommerce markets in the world.
As Dan pointed out when the deal was announced, eBay haven’t had a stellar historical performance in Japan, currently the third largest economy in the world by GDP (fourth if you count the EU, which sits between the US in first place and China in second).
“The acquisition of Giosis’ Japan business significantly expands eBay’s footprint in Japan, one of the largest e-commerce markets in the world. Building on the strength of the Qoo10.jp platform, we will be able to offer Japanese consumers more inventory from around the world. With the Qoo10.jp platform, we also will be able to serve a new and growing user base as well as broaden our presence in a dynamic, underpenetrated market with strong e-commerce potential and high mobile adoption.”
– Devin Wenig, President and CEO of eBay Inc
eBay has a fast-growing cross-border trade export business in Japan that enables thousands of Japanese businesses to sell their products to eBay’s 170 million active buyers around the world. Based in Tokyo, eBay has been promoting the cross-border trade opportunity to Japanese retailers, entrepreneurs and small businesses since 2009.
What’s not so easy is for Western merchants to sell to Japanese consumers due to the requirement to have a business entity in the country. That’s why Pentagon have established a presence in the country to act as merchant of record for their retailer clients.
We’ll have to wait and see if eBay can ease the export process for merchants to sell into Japan, but if they can then it will be a huge opportunity, second only to China for those who already sell in the US.
