eBay Buys Shopping.com For $620 Million Price Tag
eBay plans to acquire Shopping.com for an estimated price tag of $620 million (based on the outstanding shares of Shopping.com stock at $21 per share in cash). eBay began providing an online marketplace in September of 1995 and today, almost 10 years later, it is perhaps one of the best known sites with more than one hundred million registered users.
eBay’s first significant purhcase in 2002 was PayPal, the internet payment company largely used by eBay members as a popular payment method, for $1.5 billion. Since then, PayPal has grown by leaps and bounds, aqcuiring 71.6 million new registered users. PayPal remains eBay’s preferred source of exchanging funds between users but has also already claimed more accounts than Bank of America and Discover.
eBay has big plans for PayPal and is looking to attract other large online merchants. They have already signed up iTunes, the music store, and Overstock.com, the online outlet store. PayPal is also expanding overseas, hoping to eventually compete with Visa, Mastercard and American Express. A recent Washington Post article quoted eBay’s Chief Executive.
“We feel confident that PayPal can become the online wallet for an entire global generation of Internet shoppers,” eBay chief executive Meg Whitman said in a recent conference call with analysts.
And eBay’s not stopping there. The acquisition of Shopping.com, a site created in 2003 by the merging of two Internet shopping sites, epinions and DealTime, will provide an additional outlet for eBay members to reach an additional shopping audience. Shopping.com already provides shoppers with the ability to find, compare pricing and purchase products and will integrate well with eBay’s buying and selling services.
If all goes well with regulatory and share holder approvals, the purchase is expected to take place in this years third quarter.
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Columnist Lisa Melvin writes for Web Marketing News and is a Search Engine expert at WebAdvantage.net
