The percentage of online shopping will grow and accordingly, I'm hoping that it will increase our absolute transaction volume. This may be a turning point for online shopping industry in Japan.

Not if every shopping site is like your Rakuten site! God how I hate shopping there. So much crap to navigate through to finally get to what you are looking for, then only to find it sold out! Design a better page Mr. Mikitani and then more people will shop online!

Am I missing something? Still pay taxes with Rakuten, right?

Not if every shopping site is like your Rakuten site!

Couldn't agree more. They do have better information on most products though.

So, Hiroshi, if you're reading this, DUMP the over advertising. You've made great headway at internationalizing your business, but I can tell you, most Westerners won't tollerate that BS.

Here's my personal example: I spent two days looking for the right dish rack for our kitchen and only Rakuten had the details and pics with measurements that I needed to make the right choice for our small counter. I'd search for the product on Amazon, then once I found it, go to Rakuten to check the details. Amazon was cheaper. Of course, this isn't needed if you wanna by the Queen CD Jazz: Deluxe Edition, which I got on Amazon as well without all the ad BS.

I think taxes are still required online, but maybe some companies cheat and don't do sales tax or maybe if you buy from overseas companies there is no sales tax.

Either way, this will just hurt regular stores and hurt the economy as a whole. It'll take a decade just to recover from this price shock, if ever.

What he hopes is many local shops get out of business, so he can recuperate the market share.

maybe some companies cheat and don't do sales tax

Maybe ? It's Amazon's specialty and the reason they are at war with tax services of a number of countries. But I don't think Rakuten can escape the law when they sell to Japanese customers from shops in Japan.