Does Rakuten Card Reader work well with Shopify POS in Japan?

[Birch]

Good Afternoon,

Does the Rakuten Card Reader (Rakuten Pay) work with Shopify POS? It's unfortunate that we cannot use Shopify Card Reader with Shopify POS in Japan. That being said, I do have some concerns with the Settlement Fee List. Please let me know if I got this right. 

Example.

I choose Standard Plan, which's $79.00 a month

Domestic Credit Fees 3.3%

Overseas CC Fee 3.85%

Since I cant use Shopify Card Reader I have to pay an additional 1.0%, although I prefer the Shopify card reader.

Now is that 1.0% after Rakuten has taken their CC Fees or a compound total of CC fees?

Example

Sales - 3,000,000 - Domestics CC fees - $99,000

Shopify Payment - $30,000 or is it 3,000,000 - $99,000, which amounts to $29,010. $990.00 is a huge difference when you have to pay a monthly subscription fee as well. Please someone Clarify before I make the transition from my previous gateway provider.

[Birch]

Update:

You will not be charged additional Shopify payment fees if you are only using Rakuten Card Reader on Shopify POS. The charges only occur online payments, if you are using Shopify payments and Rakuten together, which is extremely fair. However, you will be charged a monthly payment for the Plan you choose. These are all pluses in my book.

Does Rakuten Card Reader work with Shopify POS? In theory, it should, but still researching. I went ahead and applied for the Rakuten Card Reader and will be testing it myself. This would be great news for the Japanese Community. 

In my opinion; When Shopify Hardware and Card readers become available in Japan, I will solely be using Shopify. Hopefully, Shopify will be able to break thru that barrier soon. 

[Kitikate]

Hello Birch,
I am actually working on the same stuff here.

We applied for Rakuten, Square(not working) and Otegaru pay.

Rakuten take almost one month to be approved, so we are still waiting for the approval. 

I will be using shopify payment for my online store. But since we can not do that in POS, I am stil wonderich what would be the best terminal.

Le me know if you find the answer, I will do the same for you. :). 

GL

[Birch]

 Kitikate , 

Yes, JCB handles the approval process for Rakuten and they do take some time. Not sure if you are aware, Rakuten has a promo right now for a free Card reader.

Link: Rakuten Promo

I will keep you updated as well. 

Good Luck

[Kitikate]

Hi Birch,

We got approved all Rakuten and otegaru pay in about 3 weeks. 

Rakuten sent the terminal about 1 week after approwal.  Otegaru took additional 3 weeks after approwal to send the terminal and printer to us.

Square was by far the fastest it took only 2 weeks to finish everything including receiving the terminal, but it requires signature when paying, so we returned it.

Hope you got it already accepted too.

Good luck,

Kitikate

[Birch]

Hi Kitikate,

That is great news. I'm extremely happy for you.  Unfortunately, we were rejected. We sent pictures of the building, a copy of the lease contract, copy of the Internet/phone application. But there is nothing that can tell we are really opening a furniture/decor shop "Birch&Hue". They wanted pictures of the store with a sign already on it. We are a new business and the carpenters are pushing fast to get the sign and I'm working on the website. 

If there are any details I missed on the application process, please let me know. Square process is far easier, but I've already put too much time in Shopify to back out yet. You gave me hope. I really appreciate you staying in touch. 

[Kitikate]

Dear Birch,

sorry for the late reply/

Thank you and I am sorry to hear that.

You did everything well, but Rakuten is for example doing land line checking phone call. If you dont have land line at the shop place and you dont pick up the phone introducing yourself like Hello you reached Birch, tey will refuse just because of this, it happend to us too. We had to apply for land line number together with internet. and use that number right after application.

Same with the store. We are in Jiyugaoka and we were waiting for all design to come from Turkey. So I had to provide proffesional plans and design from architect to them so they believed. at the same time I provided pictures of the place while being in the middle of construction.

You dont miss anything, but any small detail might cause that refusal. 😞 It is not an easy task.

In the end square and rakuten works almost same. For us biggest square weakness was the signature . which is mandatory. And of course Rakuten has Rakuten pay so some people really want to spent points in our shop. 🙂

Hope you could move forward already, I will help if you have any questions.

GL

[Birch]

WOW! This is fantastic and valuable information. We are also in the middle
of the construction and probably won't open until May or June. We finally
got internet and internet phone, so I may try that approach. I'll send them
designs too. If all fails, I'll just use square. That's who I'm using for
my other business. Thank you so much for the information.

[Birch]

Kitikate have you had any luck with Rakuten Pay?  I resubmitted with a business phone number, actual store door sign, finished website, corporate business license, rental agreement, the electric bill, and warehouse rental agreement. Unfortunately, it would be hard to open without a POS and card reader for a brick-and-mortar store.

We received a phone call from Rakuten and now they want us to provide them actual pictures of the furniture with Bar Codes and prices labeled. For me, this has to be the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. Basically, they want me to have an active store with no card reader, while I wait for their approval. How are they so backward? No way they'll be able to compete with amazon with these regulations. I'm moving over to square. I currently use square with other businesses with 0 issues. Shopify itself is a good platform, Rakuten pay not so much.