--- title: Rakuten Closes: Retailers Adopt the Retail Media Network url: https://click2buy.com/en/rakuten-closes-retailers-adopt-the-retail-media-network/ type: post date: 2026-10-08 description: Rakuten France ceased all activity connecting buyers and sellers on September 30 at 11:59 p.m. With no buyer deemed satisfactory, the marketplace founded in 2000 as PriceMinister is gone, along… --- # Rakuten Closes: Retailers Adopt the Retail Media Network Rakuten France ceased all activity connecting buyers and sellers on September 30 at 11:59 p.m. With no buyer deemed satisfactory, the marketplace founded in 2000 as PriceMinister is gone, along with roughly 180 jobs. According to Pixmania, an unsuccessful bidder for the business, it still represented more than 2,500 professional sellers and more than €400 million in transaction volume. As this marketplace was winding down, retail media, the sale of advertising space on retailers’ sites and apps, was crossing a threshold. WARC forecasts global spend of $196.7 billion in 2026, around 16% of worldwide advertising investment, and expects it to overtake linear and connected TV combined. Rakuten France, historically one of the French players in the sector, did not survive the shift. **Key takeaway** Retail media is worth $196.7 billion in 2026 according to WARC, but growth is slowing: 38.6% in 2021, 13.7% in 2025, a forecast 11.6% in 2027. It is a game of scale: Amazon captures more than two-thirds of spend in France. For a retailer, the question is no longer whether to monetize its audience, but at what scale. ## A decade of decline, an exit with no buyer The Japanese group acquired PriceMinister in 2010 for about €200 million, with the ambition of making it its European base against Amazon. At the time, the site claimed nearly 11 million monthly visitors, more than Amazon France at around 9 million. The subsidiary’s value had been written down to €65 million by 2016, and the PriceMinister brand disappeared in 2018. According to Rakuten France’s management, the customer base shrank by 33% over ten years and traffic by 42%. In the third quarter of 2025 the site still drew 9.5 million unique visitors a month, against 15.5 million for Cdiscount and 38.8 million for Amazon, according to figures relayed by Journal du Geek. The sale process, run by Carlsquare, began in the spring. Rakuten accepted none of the offers it received, including Pixmania’s, and announced the closure in mid-July. On July 28, its terms of use were amended to bar new seller registrations. The group cites a rapidly changing market, marked by the rise of foreign platforms. It is refocusing on Kobo, Viber, Rakuten TV and Rakuten Advertising, its affiliate network, which continues to operate. Seller support runs until November 30; balances in seller e-wallets are to be paid out by November 10. ## Media economics versus commission economics The difference starts with the revenue base. A marketplace earns a commission of roughly 10 to 15% on its sellers’ transaction volume. A retail media network sells access to a qualified audience, with gross margins the industry puts between 60 and 80%. LSA cites levels above 80% once technology investments are amortized. The two figures are not directly comparable, one being a take rate and the other a margin, but the gap in unit economics explains retailers’ interest. Walmart provides the clearest illustration. Its global advertising business reached nearly $6.4 billion in fiscal 2026, which ended in January, up 46%, including the Vizio acquisition. Advertising and membership together accounted for close to a third of operating income in the latest quarter. This is no longer a side revenue stream: it is a pillar of the model. Criterion Marketplace commission Retail media **Revenue base** Sellers’ transaction volume Audience and first-party data **Earnings level** 10-15% of GMV (take rate) 60-80% gross margin, above 80% after technology amortization according to LSA **Prerequisites** Broad assortment, active sellers Qualified audience, first-party data, ad sales team **Exposure** Falling traffic, seller attrition Budget concentration at Amazon Margins and rates: industry estimates, unaudited. ## A game of scale, not just monetization Monetizing is not enough, and Rakuten shows it. LSA already ranked it among the main French retail media sellers. But the sector is heavily concentrated: Amazon captured 78% of US spend in 2025, ahead of Walmart (7.5%), and accounts for more than two-thirds of investment in several large European markets, including France, according to WARC. In France, e-retail media revenue reached €1.38 billion in 2025, up 13%, or 11% of a €12.4 billion digital advertising market. The momentum is real, but WARC expects European growth to slow to single digits. Mordor Intelligence, for its part, uses a much narrower scope: $25.53 billion in 2026 and $34.73 billion in 2031, a 6.35% annual rate. The eightfold gap with WARC illustrates the absence of a common market definition; the two series agree on direction, not on magnitude. Indicator Figure Source Global retail media, 2026 $196.7B (2026 edition: $200.4B) WARC RMN market, 2026 then 2031 $25.53B then $34.73B Mordor Intelligence E-retail media France, 2025 €1.38B (+13%) Observatoire de l’e-pub Walmart advertising, fiscal 2026 ≈$6.4B (+46%) Walmart Rakuten France 2,500+ sellers, €400M+ transaction volume Pixmania ## Outlook: who can realistically launch a network Closed networks, Persistence Market Research observes, suit mainly platforms with hundreds of millions of active shoppers; hybrid models open a path for mid-sized players. Mordor notes for its part that third-party aggregators are growing 9.07% a year through 2031, faster than the market, and identifies a shortage of media skills inside retailers as a brake. The French market has already answered with pooling: Unlimitail, born from the alliance of Carrefour and Publicis, and Infinity Advertising, the joint ad sales house of Casino and Intermarché. LSA points out that the main obstacle remains the fragmentation of supply for advertisers. For mid-sized retailers, the choice will come down to building, joining a pooled network or relying on an aggregator. **Avoid**: launching an ad sales operation without audience volume or usable customer data. Without either, the inventory finds no buyers. **Good practice**: first quantify the qualified audience and data coverage, then choose between an in-house network, pooling and an aggregator. That leaves the 2,500 sellers. Most will fall back on Amazon, Cdiscount or foreign platforms that, according to Ecommerce Nation, have become near-mandatory gateways for keeping volume. Greater concentration of marketplaces would mechanically increase the weight of the advertising budgets these sellers will have to spend there to stay visible. The effect on acquisition costs remains to be measured. ## Why did Rakuten France close? No buyer deemed satisfactory emerged from a sale process launched in the spring. Over ten years, traffic fell 42% and the customer base 33%, against Amazon, Cdiscount and foreign platforms. ## How many sellers and employees are affected? About 180 employees and more than 2,500 professional sellers, according to Pixmania. Support remains open until November 30, 2026. ## Can a mid-sized retailer make a retail media network profitable? It depends on its audience and data. Below a certain threshold, pooling (Unlimitail, Infinity Advertising) or using a third-party aggregator is more realistic than an in-house ad sales operation. ## Sources - [WARC Media, The Future of Commerce Media 2025](https://www.warc.com/content/article/warc-data/the-future-of-commerce-media-2025/en-gb/162035) - [CB News, WARC Media, The Future of Commerce Media 2026 (in French)](https://www.cbnews.fr/node/102693) - [Mordor Intelligence, Retail Media Networks Market](https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/retail-media-networks-market) - [Siècle Digital, Observatoire de l’e-pub (in French)](https://siecledigital.fr/2026/02/11/publicite-digitale-le-pub-franchit-12-milliards-deuros/) - [PPC Land, Walmart advertising results, fiscal 2026](https://ppc.land/walmart-connect-hits-41-growth-as-ad-business-nears-6-4b/) - [Ecommerce Nation, Pixmania and the closure of Rakuten France (in French)](https://www.ecommerce-nation.fr/fermeture-rakuten-france-pixmania-conteste/) - [Ecommerce Nation, the end of Rakuten France (in French)](https://www.ecommerce-nation.fr/fin-de-rakuten-france-pourquoi-le-modele-de-la-marketplace-generaliste-est-mort/) - [Journal du Geek, Rakuten France seeks a buyer (in French)](https://www.journaldugeek.com/2026/05/06/rakuten-france-risque-la-fermeture-180-salaries-sont-concernes/) - [MacGeneration, final hours for Rakuten France (in French)](https://www.macg.co/ailleurs/2026/09/dernieres-heures-pour-rakuten-france-qui-fermera-ce-soir-minuit-311341) - [Next, Rakuten France closes its doors (in French)](https://next.ink/259045/rakuten-france-ferme-ses-portes-ce-soir-a-minuit/) - [LSA, Why retail media will boom in France (in French)](https://www.lsa-conso.fr/pourquoi-le-retail-media-va-exploser-en-france-enquete,441191) - [Persistence Market Research, Retail Media Networks](https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/market-research/retail-media-networks-market.asp) ![Photo of Hugo](https://click2buy.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Photo-Hugo-C.png) Hugo, Marketing at Click2Buy “Rakuten is a reminder that an audience is only worth what you can monetize at scale: retail media is won on network size.”