The Whole Japanese Business Circle Has Been Sensational: The Integration And Confrontation Of The Electric Giant.

Recently, it was learned that Japan's Lotte bought the fashion business Fablic, and the news of the integration of the Rakuma and Fril of the two e-commerce platforms also shocked the entire Japanese electricity business circle. At the same time, it also pushed another Japanese electric giant Mercari into the public view. Now they have become competitors.

At the Tokyo conference held by foreign media Tech in Asia, Mercari co founder CEO Shintaro Yamada said Mercari focused on the global market and the next step would be to enter the UK market after the US.

So Mercari's ambition has already left Japan.

It is understood that Mercari was founded in 2013, is a headquarter in Tokyo, Japan, second-hand goods mobile e-commerce platform.

Since its inception, the company has accumulated $110 million in financing, of which the latest is the $75 million D round of financing announced in March this year.

At that point, Mercari valued more than $1 billion and became the first Japanese Unicorn company (unicorn, a startup company valued at $1 billion).

Mercari the mobile terminal's flea market mode is similar to China's leisure fish. Users only need to take a picture of a commodity, check the basic information of the old and new, the delivery location and the distribution method, and then sell the things that you want to sell in Mercari. Every time a paction is completed, Mercari will charge a certain service charge.

According to the Japan times, in March this year, Mercari's monthly trading volume in Japan has exceeded $100 million, more than the total number of two competitors who ranked second and third (Mercari first), and has just entered the US market to become the top three in the App download list.

Shintaro also revealed a few data at the Tokyo in Tech conference: the latest downloading of Mercari in the US was 19 million, while this figure was only 12 million at the end of July this year. In Japan, the downloading volume was 35 million at the end of July this year, and only 30 million in May this year. The number of active users in App accounts for 30%-40% of the total number of users. In addition, in August this year, the volume of platform pactions was 6 times higher than that in the same period last year.

Now, the most important thing for Mercari is to extend its tentacles to the US electricity market.

Shintaro pointed out that in the United States, the mobile phone business of second-hand goods is a potential market that can achieve 10 times earnings. In the past year, Mercari 90%'s energy has been invested in the US market.

"We have different development paths with most Japanese companies.

We hope to make breakthroughs in the exploration of the US market, and then bring these experiences back to Japan, while other Japanese companies tend to take domestic experience to the foreign market.

In fact, it is understood that the rapid growth has prompted Mercari to start developing the US market in less than a year after being launched in Japan.

At present, its full-time employees in the United States are over 40, and the team is led by co-founder Ryo Ishizuka.

In order to experience the market directly, its team members often walk around in the two markets of the United States and Japan.

Mercari's main products in the US market, like Japan, are dominated by women's fashion products, such as LV and Vic.

The data show that the top five categories in the US market are cosmetics,

Mobile phones and accessories, jewelry, women's shoes.

In the US, Mercari has few competitors, but it still needs to "go to the heart" to win the trust of users and infiltrate the local population.

It is reported that Mercari is in the United States.

Unlike Japan, TV advertising is the most popular way of promotion in Japan, while in the United States, social media is used more frequently, including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

At the same time, it adopts the "Uber" promotion method (that is, users join the Mercari through friends' sharing links, and he and the distributor will receive a reward of 2 dollars) to achieve better results.

Just when it was launched, a user invited 90 new users, and the 90 new users invited their friends respectively.

In order to get in touch with the most influential users, Mercari has attracted a large number of New York make-up artists and fashion designers to download the app. The new users they bring are even more impressive.

Kei Nagasawa, chief financial officer of Mercari, once said in an interview with a foreign media: "on our platform, it will take less than 3 minutes for a commodity to be put on the shelves, and goods will sell very fast -- 50% of the goods will be sold within 24 hours after the shelves.

In addition, we have provided a very convenient distribution solution for our customers with our logistics partners. The seller has saved many troublesome processes (such as commodity packaging, asking to write down the buyer's address, paying the freight, etc.).

And this simple experience of buying and selling is exactly the biggest obstacle faced by Mercari users before entering the market.

In order to become more localized, Mercari has adjusted its applications according to the characteristics of the US users.

For example,

Websites usually fill in all kinds of product catalogues and discount information on online shop pages, but American consumers prefer simple and refreshing page designs.

In addition, Mercari was also willing to "bleed" in terms of user development.

At present, Mercari has not yet received trade commissions in the United States, while in Japan, the proportion of paction fees is 10%.

Of course, this does not affect its future or will charge users of the United States.

It is also worth noting that CEO Shintaro of the company disclosed a detail at its recent meeting: Although Mercari has not yet raised funds from venture capital institutions outside Japan (it has been pointed out that if there is no US investor, it will face enormous challenges in the US market), but since the beginning of this year, the company has been in close contact with the VC agencies in the US and Europe.

Due to the total financing of US $110 million, market expectations for Mercari are also high.

However, Mercari seems more confident than Japan's domestic rivals, Rakuma and Fril, who have not entered the US.

Shintaro also said that the greater success of Mercari will be in the international market, and the next step will be stepped into the UK.

In the rapidly changing market, it is still uncertain whether Mercari can continue to "shine", but its current development trend should be able to make the long-awaited Chinese second-hand idle trading platform colleagues excited.