Base powers 150,000 ecommerce stores. Now it’s providing payments, too

The newest player in Japanese online payments is bringing 150,000 friends along for the ride. Base, Japan’s answer to Shopify, has acquired Pureca, an online payment service, and rebranded it as Pay.jp. Base will officially open its payment business from the spring.

In just a little over two years, Base has become one of the top names in DIY ecommerce shop creation. With a promise that anyone can create their own shop within 60 seconds for free, Base has enabled its users to open up 150,000 businesses. A Base spokesperson declined to release the number of those shops which are active, but did note that every month an additional 10,000 shops get started on Base.

Soon, both old and new stores will be able to offer consumers Pay.jp as an online payment option, alongside traditional standbys like credit cards and bank transfers. While Base does collect fees for processing those payments, the fee structure for Base is not yet public. The startup tells Tech in Asia that its payment service will have competitive terms and conditions.

That could be interpreted to mean that processing is free up to a certain revenue limit. A quick look at Base’s app store reveals a wide variety of ecommerce tools available for no cost. A freemium model would also help it compete with Spike, the new payment service from Metaps, that crossed 40,000 users in seven months.

Spike’s rapid spread is thanks in part to numerous tie-ups with Base competitors. Pay.jp could allow Base to stem this wound while the company’s wide customer base springboards Base into competiton with market heavyweights like Paypal or GMO Payment Gateway.

At the very least, it provides a new revenue stream – not that the company is hurting for money. A Base spokesperson confirmed that the company netted “tens of millions of dollars” in revenue last year, hinting that real number is in the upper limits of that range.

See: Japan’s BASE raises $3 million from Global Brain, eyes overseas expansion