●Over 9 million shortcut icons created, allowing users to access their favorite shops from the home screen
● Improved search functionality, allowing item searching for individual shops
TOKYO – February 1, 2018 – LINE Corporation, the operator of LINE SHOPPING – a service that provides users with a fun shopping experience through the LINE messaging app – announced that the service has exceeded 15 million registered users.
LINE SHOPPING is a shopping service that adds value to shopping and makes the experience fun. In addition to merchandise covering fashion and other miscellaneous goods, over 30 million items are listed on the service, spanning categories such as sports, interior decorating, electronics, cosmetics, and more. The service allows users to easily search and browse for a wide variety of products – from online stores of manufacturers, fashion brands to popular shopping malls – and users can receive up to 20% of the purchase price back in LINE Points just by making their purchase through LINE SHOPPING. *1 *2
*1 Once users decide on their purchases, they are taken to the seller's website to make their payment.
*2 Points can be converted to JPY at par to be spent with LINE Pay, or exchanged for points or products offered by other companies.
As a part of its corporate mission of "Closing the Distance," which first debuted in 2016, LINE continues to make the LINE app into a gateway for an all-encompassing "Smart Portal" to people's lives. This will seamlessly connect all types of people, information, content, and services – both offline and online – as close as they want anywhere they are, 24/7.
The LINE SHOPPING service was launched on June 15, 2017 in order to serve as a gateway to LINE's base of 71 million users to provide new opportunities for introducing shops and users. Since its launch, the service has held various events, such as "Fire Tuesday" (an event where items go on sale every Tuesday), to add value and make shopping fun and has conducted trial runs for brick-and-mortar store interconnectivity as it continues to reinforce its touchpoints with users.
By January 2018, the service had grown to include 30 million item listings, and LINE is continuing to improve the service by adding new features, such as the ability to search for items in shops.
LINE Shopping exceeded 15 million registered users on January 22, 2018 – seven months after its launch. *3
*3 The number of users who have agreed to LINE SHOPPING's terms and conditions of use.
Further, shortcut icons (an icon located on the home screen that allows users to access LINE SHOPPING directly) have been created over 9 million times, and LINE is creating various ways in which it can serve as a gateway between users and shops so that users can have fun shopping in the way that suits them best.
Major events and features since service launch
■ Fire Tuesday: an event where items go on sale every Tuesday
Fire Tuesday is a customer-appreciation event held every Tuesday where users receive 10% of the purchase price back in LINE Points. Customers can shop at one-day-only prices at stores which usually have a 1% return rate.
■ Shortcut icon: making LINE SHOPPING accessible right from the home screen
A "shortcut icon" feature was added, allowing users to access LINE SHOPPING from the home screen.
Users can get points and have fun shopping not only through accessing it from the LINE app, but directly from their home screen as well.
■ LINE SHOPPING Sale Event: "Shibuya Spot Sale by LINE SHOPPING"
At this four-day offline sale event (open from 4pm to 9pm) in Shibuya, visitors to the store could shop for over 7 million items using LINE SHOPPING and buy products for effectively 20% off. Other plans were also carried out, such as a lottery where the winner would get a maximum of 99% back in Points.
Going forward, LINE will continue to improve on individual campaigns to make shopping fun for users, and also plans to and considers strengthening connections with offline stores to provide value to users for an even more seamless and enjoyable shopping experience.
LINE SHOPPING aims to actively add new stores, improve service features, and expand on its content, as well as to become an entry point for all manners of stores.