Rakuten

Rakuten is Japan's largest general shopping platform, structured as a marketplace of independent merchant shops rather than a single unified storefront.

That structure gives each shop control over presentation and customer relationship, which is why Rakuten listings look more like individual stores than standardized product pages — a notable difference from Amazon's catalogue model.

Its points programme is central to Japanese consumer behaviour: points earned across Rakuten's services accumulate and are spent within the ecosystem, which is a strong retention mechanism.