Rakuten Taiwan launched on Thursday the Rakuten Online Bookstore, a book marketplace offering around 100,000 titles at launch.
The site, which will operate within the larger Rakuten Ichiba Taiwan Marketplace, aims to empower the Taiwan publishing community by allowing local book publishers to list a wider variety of titles and expanding their reach.
Shoppers will be able to earn Rakuten Super Points as they shop.
The Rakuten E-Commerce Index 2014 released earlier this year shows that 47.3 percent of Taiwanese purchase books online. With nearly 40,000 new titles published annually in Taiwan, this represents a growing category for e-commerce.
"We hope to redefine online bookstore channels by making it easier for Taiwanese consumers to discover new titles, and empower the local publishing community by allowing publishers of any size, to list their books on our platform," said Yuichi Ejiri, President of Regional Business Management Group, Rakuten Asia.