Rakuten France looks for a buyer

Rakuten France, formerly known as PriceMinister, is looking for a buyer for its marketplace. The platform has lost traffic and active customers in the last 10 years. If no one comes forward, the marketplace will be closed before the end of this year.

PriceMinister was a French online marketplace, founded in 2000. It became a large player in the French ecommerce market, dethroning eBay for several years. In 2010, it was acquired by the Japanese Rakuten Group for 200 million euros.

Valued at 65 million euros in 2016

Rakuten was supposed to become a main competitor of Amazon in Europe. However, by 2016, the French marketplace had already been revised downwards to 65 million euros, about a third of the purchase price. And in 2018, the PriceMinister brand was disbanded completely, replaced by Rakuten.

In that same year, Rakuten also launched its Club R cashback program, including Club R Everywhere. With that, Rakuten customers got a 5 percent discount on purchases at partner brands. This did not seem to help, as the number of active customers has fallen by 33 percent since 2016. At the same time, traffic has decreased by 42 percent.

Traffic has decreased by 42% since 2016

Decrease in visitors

According to French online news outlet Journal du Geek, Rakuten France attracted an average of 9.5 million unique visitors per month in the third quarter of 2025. In that same period, Amazon had an average of 38.8 million unique visitors, while Cdiscount had 15.5 million. This indicates that there is a large gap in market share.

Possible closure in third quarter

In April this year, employee representatives already heard that the company is looking for a buyer. Last week, it was also confirmed to news outlets. If the marketplace does not find a buyer, it will start closing down in the third quarter of this year. This would affect 180 employees.

Investment bank Carlsquare will be managing the sales process. Reportedly, it has already received expressions of interest. Several names were cited, like Fnac-Darty, Leclerc, Auchan and Cdiscount.

Closures of other Rakuten marketplaces

It is not the first time that the Rakuten Group decides to close its marketplaces. In 2020, Rakuten Germany announced that it would close its doors. The company’s marketplaces in Spain, the United Kingdom and Austria have also closed. Rakuten France was the last to remain open.