Rakuten has decided to get rid of its French brand Priceminister and absorb it into Rakuten, similar to what it did tot British Play.com.
Uniformity
Starting on 1 March, Priceminister visitors will be diverted to a Rakuten page, where they will still find the exact same product range. Priceminister, founded in 2000, was sold to the Japanese company in 2010 for 200 million euro.
Rakuten has acquired several Western platforms, like Play.com in the United Kingdom, Tradoria in Germany and Buy.com in the United States. After a certain time, these all turned their name into Rakuten. The only reason Priceminister survived this long, was because it enjoyed such a good reputation in France. According to French LSA, that was the reason Priceminister and Rakuten co-existed at first.
Rakuten is altering the names to create a uniform brand identity, which should be able to better compete with companies like Alibaba and Amazon. There had been rumours that Rakuten was planning to sell Priceminister, but that does not seem to be the case anymore. It still allegedly plans to sell its French logistical company, Alpha Direct Services.
