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How to sell on
Rakuten

Thinking about expanding your business? Then you should definitely sell your things on Rakuten Advertising, one of the world's largest global affiliate marketing networks.

What is Rakuten?

What is Rakuten
Rakuten Group is a Japanese tech company specializing in e-commerce and fintech. It was founded in 1997 under the name MDM, but since 1999 it has been renamed after the Japanese word for "optimism".

Some of Rakuten's well-known products include the online marketplace Rakuten Ichiba, the messaging app Viber, and the telecommunications network Rakuten Mobile.

Another of Rakuten Group's prominent businesses is Rakuten Advertising, a provider of affiliate marketing solutions previously known as Rakuten Marketing. On this platform, you as a merchant will find up to 150,000 premium partners ready to promote your brand across various display, media, and search channels. Rakuten Advertising also lets you show native ads to millions of users of the vast Rakuten ecosystem.

How does Rakuten work?

How Rakuten works
To sell on Rakuten Advertising, you will require an affiliate program page. This page is where all publishers can view your offers, terms and conditions, as well as apply to work with you.

Publishers you've partnered up with will also find here your promotional materials, such as product descriptions and referral links.

Rakuten affiliate program

Affiliates will use the assets you provide to create ads on their blogs, websites, social media, or any other online resource. Viewers who click on one of these ads will then be redirected straight to your store. Once that happens, Rakuten will start monitoring what these visitors do on your website to check if they make a purchase.

Retailers who sell products on Rakuten usually use a cost-per-action (CPA) model. In this case, you reward publishers for the sales they drive with a commission. You're free to decide which rates to set, as long as you specify them in your affiliate program. For example, you can have a fixed rate for any sale, or pay a percentage of the customer's order value.

Benefits of using Rakuten

1. Huge audience

The followers of hundreds of diverse affiliates from all over the world, millions of users of Rakuten's services – all these people can become your happy customers.

2. Brand awareness

If you sell with Rakuten, you can present your brand on many trusted sources which will not just spread the word about you but also increase your credibility.

3. Invest only in results

Merchants selling on Rakuten are safe from spending on customers who don't buy anything since the payments are made just for the ad clicks that end in sales.

4. Rich reporting

Rakuten has a dedicated Insights & Analytics Portal with dozens of customizable reports that can help you analyze your and your affiliates' performance in real time.

5. Perfect match with publishers

Rakuten's exclusive Affiliate Intelligence powers the Partnership Discovery, an advanced tool for finding publishers that work best with your product categories.

6. New advertising opportunities

Rakuten's AI-driven Placement Recommender feature will help you discover untested, yet potentially most profitable places for placing your ads.

How to start selling on Rakuten

How to start selling on Rakuten
It will take about 1 month before you can start selling your first products on Rakuten Advertising, so stock up on patience.

Send a request to register on Rakuten Advertising

You first need to reach out to Rakuten via their contact form and schedule a meeting to negotiate your goals, cooperation plans, and further steps. After you provide all the necessary information, Rakuten will carefully double-check your business and see whether it meets the platform's requirements.

Configure your Rakuten advertiser account

Once verified, you will be registered as an Affiliate Advertiser on Rakuten's platform. You should now log in to your new account and set everything up in it. Be sure to carefully fill out every section of your program page, from policies to contacts, as publishers won't be able to see or reach out to you if your profile is incomplete. Now is also the time to list your products on Rakuten, but to do this, you will need a product feed.

Install the Mulwi feed app to create a Rakuten feed

A feed lets you quickly get any amount of products on Rakuten Advertising in one go. But you won't benefit much from this speed and efficiency if you decide to create a feed manually.

This is where you'll need a professional product feed software like Mulwi. With it, you can make a detailed feed for any products you choose in just a few clicks. All you have to do is use our ready-made customizable Shopify Rakuten product feed template.

Ready to try it yourself? You will find Mulwi in the Shopify app store.

Set up and connect the feed to Rakuten

Have you decided what types of advertising channels you will work with? Because Rakuten has separate feed specifications for each of them. But you won't have to choose just one if you create a feed with Mulwi. Our Rakuten feeds are balanced for all of them at the same time.

Now, you only need to upload this product feed to your Rakuten advertiser account. If you use a feed link from Mulwi for this task, your publishers will always see the most recent data directly from your Shopify store, as Mulwi will regularly send Rakuten an updated feed.

Find Rakuten affiliates

Congratulations, you're now fully prepared to meet your new partners! But selling online on Rakuten Advertising effectively means that you don't just sit back and wait for publishers to get in touch with you first. Being proactive yourself is a much better approach, and the best place to start is by checking out Rakuten's Partnership Discovery tool.

What is Shopify feed for Rakuten and how to create one?

Shopify feed for Rakuten
A Shopify product feed is a text file that has a specific structure and a list of your offers. It's used to quickly transfer information from your store to the platforms where you sell.

A product feed is often the answer to the question "How do I get my products on Rakuten or any other sales channel?"

The best and fastest way to make a feed is with specialized software. Mulwi is exactly what you need, as it will help you get a high-quality feed in a matter of minutes. Mulwi has a pre-built Rakuten product feed template that you just need to fill up, but if you want to add more details, you can freely alter it as you see fit. And if you wish to change the product data as well, our app has many tools for any of your demands, including category mapping, translation, and dynamic expressions.

Rakuten product feed template

With Mulwi, Rakuten will always say "Super!" about your product feeds.

Best practices for selling on Rakuten

Best practices for Rakuten
We understand well that your goal is to sell successfully on Rakuten Advertising. These proven tricks will help you achieve it faster:
  • Upload an updated product feed at least once per day.
  • Allocate a separate budget for each of your affiliates.
  • Try working with publishers from different marketing channels.
  • Hold onboarding meetings with your new partners to explain to them all the nuances of your campaign.
  • Use Rakuten's Affiliate Conversion Journey report to review how your publishers contribute to sales.
  • Provide bonuses, such as higher commission rates, for top-performing publishers.

Frequently asked questions

How do I sign up for Rakuten Advertising?

What countries and languages does Rakuten Advertising support?

What is the minimum budget for Rakuten Advertising campaigns?

Can I run Rakuten Advertising campaigns without a website?

How do I update my Rakuten product feed?

How long does it take to start selling on Rakuten?

How do I find publishers on Rakuten?

Can I manage multiple stores in one Rakuten account?

Our customers speak of us

Beewise

Great app! It does exactly what it's supposed to do, and the customer support is really helpful and quick! I highly recommend it to everyone!

Beewise

Beewise

Netherlands

Maxstore.no

The tool provides a good overview and is simple and intuitive to use. I needed help creating a specific feed for a collaborator. I got support right away, have been followed up and they have even delivered an improved feed. I have received better support than expected! I recommend this app!

Maxstore.no

Maxstore.no

Norway

Petopy Shop

Great app, great support by the team. Do not hesitate to use it if you need Xml export like us. Works perfectly!

Thank you Mulwi.

Petopy Shop

Petopy Shop

Turkey

Olivia & Kate

Very helpful customer service and good productfeeds! Would recommend the app for your webshops if you are looking for one

Olivia & Kate

Olivia & Kate

Netherlands

Shishi Chérie

Amazing App! Even more important than all the great app features is the support behind it. Andrii is super helpful & fast in case you experience any issues. You get a true 5 star support!

Shishi Chérie

Shishi Chérie

Germany

PetPost

Overall, the experience with Mulwi has been extremely positive. Creating and managing feeds can be quite stressful at times, but Mulwi has made the experience so simple and easy. They created a custom feed to suit my needs which was great! I highly recommend them!

PetPost

PetPost

Australia

Ciabalù

Supporto davvero eccellente, hanno subito capito e risolto il mio problema. Davvero un ottimo modulo per shopify.

Ciabalù

Ciabalù

Italy

Hypeone

Sehr guter Service. Support schreibt sehr schnell zurück und alle Funktionen sind vorhanden die man sich nur wünschen kann! (Very good service. Support writes back very quickly and all functions are available that you could only wish for!)

Hypeone

Hypeone

Germany

K and L Wines

A very sophisticated feed app and the back end personal support from the team has been incredible. I am not an automatic review writer, but this company deserves 10 stars. Thanks, guys, for all you fast uncomplicated and accurate execution of challenging integrations and feeds which we now have in place and are fully functional. Highly recommended!

K and L Wines

K and L Wines

United Kingdom

Furnhouse ApS

Very complex and easy-to-use app. If you don't have the technical skills, fast and helpful support (Andrii) is always on. Definitely recommended

Furnhouse ApS

Furnhouse ApS

Denmark

Beauty Outlet

Fast service responce, great app.

I use this app for a dynamic xml feed for a affiliate marketing.

Beauty Outlet

United Kingdom

Pandera

Great Support with Fast Response. The app is working very good. I also like the app because you can generate many feeds.

Pandera

Romania

Meaco (U.K.) Limited

Very useful to communicate with live links to Facebook Shop, Price Comparison and affiliate network. Great customer support too. Thanks for all your help Andrii.

Meaco (U.K.) Limited

United Kingdom

Looptop.se

Great shopping feed app but the outstanding selling point of this developer is the excellent support provided. Always quick with replies and adjustments to feeds if need be.

Looptop.se

Sweden

OMNES

The support received from Andrii was worth the subscription alone! The app was suggested to create Product feeds and we were able to setup and configure feeds quickly with some complex requirements for 2 of the 3 feeds. I reached out to get some support and Andrii went above and beyond to assist me in understanding my requirements and work with me to configure the additional feeds. Great app and even better support.

OMNES

United Kingdom

Akkogear.eu

Very handy plugin, we have too many SKU, this plugin saves a lot of time. We are also very satisfied with the feedback received about the product feed suggestions from the Mulwi Team, the response is very fast very helpful, thanks.

Akkogear.eu

Hong Kong SAR

Parfumfrance.com

great services, saved me lots of time with google shopping ads , great customer service as well; thank you

Parfumfrance.com

France

City Jeans

This is the best shopping feed app by far. Especially if you want to send Google Shopping the best possible feed. The app can do anything you may need in order to optimize your feed for best results on Google Ads. Also, it's not limited just to Google Shopping. You can also use it for many other platforms such as Bing Ads & Facebook.

City Jeans

USA

Ottoman Hands

Decent feed provider. The support is what makes the difference, Andrii helped me out from start to finish setting up a second currency GMC feed. Very professional.

Ottoman Hands

United Kingdom

Model Secrets

I was very happy with the support I received setting up our product feed on AWIN.

Andrii was extremely helpful and solved the problem ensuring that our feed is now 100% correct.

Model Secrets

United Kingdom

cadde374

I needed an XML that was not in their systems, as I had a need for an XML for an unknown infrastructure. Unlike other applications, they immediately entered the live chat and deciphered the language of my XML within about 5 minutes, then delivered my new XML to me. We are truly working with a successful team in this job. I'm very thankful to Mulwi and their team.

cadde374

Turkey

InnoviTechie

WOW AMAZING! ANDRII AND I WERE TRYING A CSV TO UPLOAD ON REDDIT! BUT HE WAS THERE TO FIX MY PROBLEM FOR HOURS! BEST SUPPORT EVER 5/5 STARS DONT GO ANYWHERE COME HERE! BEST FEEDS FOR HELPING

InnoviTechie

Greece

Time Resistance

The customer service was amazing and solved my issue right away; I love it when I can discuss and solve problems in the live chat rather than exchanging numerous emails. thank you again!

Time Resistance

Lithuania

Chef Bruni

I needed some help with the setup regarding the filters. Andrii quickly advised and helped me via chat support. So far I'm super happy with everything.

Chef Bruni

Slovenia

FINDRA Clothing

Really great app with amazing support. I've set the app up to run an Awin feed, when I asked some more technical questions about Google Merchant I not only got a speedy reply, but the two things I asked about were done. Recommended!

FINDRA Clothing

United Kingdom

WULF BELTTON

Great support from Alexei who worked hard to get everything to work for us. We have a quite complex setup with a Shopify Markets store but they managed to get the feeds to work with CDON after some trial and error. I can gladly recommend Omega Commerce!

WULF BELTTON

Sweden

JACK & JONES Thessaloniki/Larissa

I Used this app to make xml for marketplace. They are the best. They have perfect support. They do the xml for me with the requirements that i want. I spend so many days to find the right app and fix the xml. They fix the xml and find the solution for me in one day. Thanks a lot.

JACK & JONES Thessaloniki/Larissa

Greece

Living Simply House

It was a rocky start due to issues between Etsy and Omega but the level of customer service I've received has been second to none (Alexei has been amazing). Super simple to use and navigate, does exactly what it says it does.

Living Simply House

United Kingdom

ParrishLA

We had continuous issues integrating with Stylight due to incorrect image positions uploading through our feed. We were able to achieve a custom XML feed that selected specific images to upload to Stylight and help our store get approved. Omega Commerce was quick to respond and helped set everything up which saved us a bunch of time and frustration. This was a months long issue solved in literally 3 days- amazing!!

ParrishLA

USA

Unlimited Stories

I was looking for some feed customization and got great help to configure my feeds in 3 languages through a translation app. Now this is what you call professionnal service. I would recommend them again! It was also done in a short space of time.

Unlimited Stories

Sweden

Decords

One of the best apps for the Shopify store I have used. This app saved me hundreds of hours. I used it to list all my listings from Shopify store to CDON and Wish.com

Decords

Estonia

La La Land Store

We use it to create custom feeds with metafields data incorporated. A very reliable solution. Support is fast and very helpfull.

La La Land Store

Portugal

GGV Eyewear

Couldn't be happier with this app and the customer service. Alexei was able to create a custom template to fit our needs in a very short amount of time.

GGV Eyewear

GB

Shaping new tomorrow Denmark

We required a tool to create automated product feeds in CSV format for a partner and we have had no issues. Required a little coding on our end to get the result we needed, but works brilliantly.

Can strongly recommend this for those in the need of automating feeds. EDIT: Their customer service is brilliant - super quick and helpful.

Shaping new tomorrow Denmark

Denmark

JANIMARE

Fantastic app, helped us to integrate into several platforms without any issues. Outstanding support! All questions answered for where we were stuck how integrate certain tags into the feed, or only parts of tags.

JANIMARE

Germany

ArenaMarkt

They helped us making a custom feed for a local marketplace and after one week they added also a premade feed for that marketplace. They have very good and fast support and if you want an app that outputs xml and in specific some custom xml , this is the app you are looking for!

ArenaMarkt

Greece

Reisenthel Singapore

We’ve been searching everywhere for a way to sync our Shopify products to the Zalora marketplace and none of which works in a satisfactory manner until weeks later when we chanced upon the Mulwi Shopping Feeds. This is a god sent (and with the help of Alexei from Omega) we managed to get the entire SKU feed exported and seamlessly synced with the Zalora Singapore marketplace.

Reisenthel Singapore

Singapore

Ascopharm

We are super happy with the app and how the support team helped us set up our google shopping feed. We contacted them with numerous custom adjustments and they implemted every single one within no time. 100% recommend this app.

Ascopharm

Germany

Tričko z čtvrti

Can be used for a small e-shop up to 100 products, can be used for a small e-shop up to 100 products, can be used for a small e-shop up to 100 products.

Tričko z čtvrti

Czechia

Gaukpigiau

Very helpful! been using for over 2 years now. Highly recommended. Great support good functionality. Must have to expand your sales channels.

Gaukpigiau

Lithuania

Styleserver Schmuck und Accessoires

Perfect app, which allows you to create customized feeds. Very easy to use, with drag and drop interface. All export types, like csv and xml. Also many predefined templates for Google, Facebook and shopping Platforms. Metafields possible. Very fast and helpful support. Good price for a all in one solution.

Styleserver Schmuck und Accessoires

Germany

GrowGrows

Very powerful product feed app, with lots of flexibility for anything you want to connect your catalogue to.

GrowGrows

United Kingdom

IEWAREHOUSE

I would say Amazing service by Oleskii, you are an in omega commerce, end to end, checking each and every aspect, really happy that I choose omega commerce, one of the best things 1 to 1 correspondence, looking forward to opening more businesses, highly recommended, without ask Oleskii did all the things, Thank you so so much for everything

IEWAREHOUSE

Ireland

Lilla Orangeriet

Easy to use, I can't complain about anything. Everything works great. When I needed help changing the flow, I got quick support. Now everything works the way I want it to work.

Lilla Orangeriet

Sweden

Netlens

Great app for creating custom product feeds. We will be able to get it to work with Shopify Markets. The app make it possible to translate product descriptions and convert to local prices to match our correct local offerings.

Netlens

Sweden

Poolpirat

Very fast support. I can highly recommend this app. We use it with custom Feeds for billiger.de and idealo.de.

Poolpirat

Germany

Devola

Great app—used this to replace an old setup for Google Merchant Centre feeds across five websites and will expand this in the near future to cover other advertising platform feed requirements.

Allows for customised feeds for any purpose and liquid coding is possible, meaning the app can suit any business scenario or complex Shopify setup.

Devola

United Kingdom

Flowers & Plants Co

A huuuuuuuuuuuuge thank you to Andrii at Mulwi for sorting out my problem with feeds. App is second to none and support is absolutely amazing. I have spent days looking for a feed app that allows very seicific customizations and to be honest wasnt sure if I could even get that done on Mulwi but Andrii sorted the problem out within minutes. Expert support, thank you very very much. Would highly recommend.

Flowers & Plants Co

United Kingdom

Shop Statik

Amazing support. Needed to change AWIN feed, and it was like: explain the task – done! Highly recommend!

Shop Statik

United States

IBBE DESIGN France

One of the best app on Shopify to export feeds. Very simple. Support is ready to help you

Great!

IBBE DESIGN France

Italy

Independent app rating on Shopify.
400+ reviews with 5 star rating
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