EricEwe.com

I think this is going to be a big shakedown in the online realm with Rakuten Inc of Japan agreeing to purchase U.S. e-commerce site Buy.com Inc. The all-cash deal, valued at $250 million, will offer Rakuten its first major direct-to-consumer platform in the world’s largest e-commerce market. The move will give Rakuten a larger footprint in the U.S.

In 2005, the company made its first U.S. move via the purchase of LinkShare, but has largely focused on Asia. For instance, Rakuten and Baidu formed an e-commerce joint venture in China earlier this year.

Buy.com has yearly sales of about $500 million. The deal marks the second time Buy.com has been acquired all or in part by a Japanese company. In 1999, a group led by Softbank Corp. paid $165 million for a stake in Buy.com. Buy.com went public in 2000 and went private again in 2001.

Buy.com currently host its affiliate program on Commission Junction, and I think that in the very near future, they will migrate off Commission Junction to Linkshare, as Linkshare is part of the Rakuten web property.