Rakuten finished in UK

[AlanQ]

http://tamebay.com/2016/06/rakuten-uk-marketplace-...

Pity they destroyed the play.com base, would be nice to see some competition for ebay & Amazon

[anonymous-user]

Never used them after buying out Play. There is plenty of competition for eBay & Amazon-people just need to use a search engine again! Blame Google for that one though, every fking search has Amazon & eBay on page 1. s.

[daemon]

+1

I never used them after they bought PLAY out. Used to use PLAY quite a lot.

I have to admit though, nearly everything i buy online these days comes from Amazon or ebay.

[jammy_basturd]

I used them up until HMRC closed the Channel Islands loophole that allowed them to be so cheap. After that Amazon was always cheaper and offered better delivery options.

[Lewi25]

Used them once after they bought Play, took 3 weeks to deliver a CD even though it was in stock.

Customer service was bad and I never used them again.

[anonymous-user]

I used to use Play all the time but never used Ratuken when they bought them out. Have to say, I thought the original owner timed it perfectly when he sold the company. Come to think of it, I cannot remember the last time I bought a CD or DVD, must be over five years ago now.

[rog007]

Very interesting. I consider myself to be a prolific consumer, using both Ebay and Amazon as well as the High Street, but I had never heard of Play or Ratuken (daft name; I can just about say it!); clearly their marketing was not aimed at my demographic.

There must be a weekly delivery here from either Amazon or Ebay but, and this post has just made me realise, it's myself purchasing mainly from eBay and Miss Moneypenny sat not too far away from me who almost exclusively purchases via Amazon.

I do agree however that competition is good, but I find the Amazon experience (apart from the nause of having to dispose of ridiculously excessive amounts of packaging) to be exemplary and much better than eBay.

[Gareth1974]

I don't use them very often, but had acquired £15 of loyalty points from a large purchase this year, so I spent these as soon as I heard they were closing down.

[IATM]

I used to use play so much but as soon as they were bought over they changed a lot in a wrong way and it was rubbish.

I used to get calls weekly about how they were coming back with avengence and we're going to take the UK by storm and sign up now for seller account etc etc

Just go to show you how much crap salesmen can talk.

[Timbergiant]

Play were superb, they went downhill but when they were taken over by rakuten it just stopped being usable, like a cut price eBay but with terrible prices.

[markmullen]

Add another one to the list of people who used to order plenty from Play but nothing at all from Rakuten.

[cat with a hat]

Rakuten only paid £25 million for play.com it was simply a punt to see if they could revive it.

[russy01]

I'm typing from the other side of the fence - as I sell on rakuten and did on play.

Anyway. Regardless, I agree with you lot. We used to do good business on play.com and had a decent account manager who drove a lot of business for me. However when rakuten popped up on the scene it went to pot - lost comms and overall it was a poor takeover. Decent staff left and were replaced by monkeys...

2yrs on I am still selling BUT a pittance compared to what we did. Their team hasn't really improved and is overall very disorganised.

Quite frankly I am glad to hear it's closing, the marketplace was starting to become more work that it was worth. We can now push our efforts back into worthwhile opportunities...

Had they kept play.com as it was I think it would still be here (just about) as it had become a household name and was one of the pioneers of "free delivery".

We don't need more competition for ebay and Amazon, none of this stty little marketplaces can hold a candle anytime soon. We just need google to stick this buy button up and then watch Amazon squirm...

[chr15b]

Never used play.com and had never heard of rakuten until a recent offer via hot uk deals.

Shame, was a good deal and delivery etc was quick.

[jammy_basturd]

russy01 said:

We don't need more competition for ebay and Amazon, none of this stty little marketplaces can hold a candle anytime soon. We just need google to stick this buy button up and then watch Amazon squirm...

Never, they'd be cutting off their nose to spite their face. All of the non-Amazon ecommerce stores that rely on Google traffic would be up in arms.

[Bullett]

Play was my go to site for CD's and other media for a long time but eventually lost out to Amazon before the takeover killed it dead.

[russy01]

jammy_basturd said:

Never, they'd be cutting off their nose to spite their face. All of the non-Amazon ecommerce stores that rely on Google traffic would be up in arms.

Not if they had their Google shopping and PLA feeds right. A Google buy button would help these sellers as it would remove a step - people would be buying off google via one of these merchants.

Take the list of sellers for a product on Amazon, on a Lego item there are 100+, just put this list in Google shopping with better prices and payment via Google and you'd have the same experience.

Don't get me wrong Amazon aren't going anywhere soon. But frankly Google are one of the only companies who have the resources to properly take then on.