Chairman and CEO of Rakuten, Hiroshi Mikitani, announced the implementation of the "Pin It" button on its Ichiba internet shopping mall as well as Rakuten travel and Rakuten recipe sites.
Users of these sites will now be able to collect and share images of their favourite products through Pinterest.
Rakuten, one of the largest internet companies in the world, bought a stake worth up to $100m in May this year, with plans to help Pinterest improve its service and expand the site’s community globally.
The partnership is helping the company break into the Japanese market with plans to break into 17 other global markets as well.
Ben Silbermann, co-founder and CEO of Pinterest said the partnership with Rakuten will help Pinterest move closer towards its business goals.
"Our goal is to help people discover things they love, by connecting people through their shared interests," said Silbermann in May. "Bringing Rakuten on board gives us an amazing opportunity to move a step closer to this goal."
Other investors funding Pinterest include Bessemer Venture Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, FirstMark Captial and various angel investors. Rakuten, however, is the only company participating in the rights offering.
Hiroshi Mikitani, CEO of Rakuten says the investment in Pinterest compliments Rakuten’s business model for e-commerce.
"While some may see e-commerce as a straightforward vending machine-like experience, we believe it is a living process where both retailers and consumers can communicate, discover, and curate to make the experience more entertaining. We see tremendous synergies between Pinterest’s vision and Rakuten’s model for e-commerce. Rakuten looks forward to introducing Pinterest to the Japanese market as well as other markets around the world."
Pinterest has become a popular online social service for collecting and sharing photographs. The site attracted 11.7 million visitors in January 2012 and in March 2012 became the third largest social networking site in the U.S.
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