Milo strengthens eBay's selection of products, through the addition
of real-time inventory from national retailers and small businesses
SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
eBay Inc. (Nasdaq: EBAY) today announced it has acquired Milo, a leading
local shopping engine that provides consumers access to accurate,
real-time, local store inventory and pricing, giving them even more
choice and flexibility when shopping online. By acquiring Milo and
integrating its technology into the eBay.com platform and mobile
offerings, eBay will be able to provide consumers with access to
millions of products from approximately 50,000 stores across all 50 U.S.
states. Additionally, eBay sellers will have the opportunity to reach
more shoppers.
"Local commerce companies like Milo are blurring the lines between
in-store and online shopping," said Mark Carges, chief technology
officer and senior vice president, global products, eBay Marketplaces.
"By making accurate, real-time, local store inventory and pricing
available to online and mobile shoppers, we see a huge opportunity for
local retailers, small businesses and eBay sellers to reach more buyers,
and for consumers to make more informed buying decisions."
Carges continued, "Since eBay is an online marketplace and doesn't
compete with brick-and-mortar stores, adding local store inventory to
the eBay marketplace is a natural extension of what we've been doing for
15 years — bringing buyers and sellers together to access the largest
selection available anywhere."
With the acquisition of Milo, eBay strengthens its position as the place
where consumers go for their shopping needs. According to comScore Inc.,
eBay handled more than 2 billion U.S. product searches in the third
quarter. 1 Amazon saw 847 million, while Google handled 226
million product searches over the same period. 1
With more than 140 retail partners, including nearly 90 small and
medium-sized businesses, the company believes that Milo will be a great
fit within eBay's overall marketplaces business. Like eBay, Milo enables
small businesses to compete with large retailers. And, through the
addition of Milo, eBay plans to bring the inventories of even more small
local retailers online and to help existing eBay sellers with
brick-and-mortar locations and compatible inventory systems to sell
locally.
"As one of the last true brick-and-mortar stores for skaters, we've been
extremely fortunate to have our unique product selection visible to
shoppers on Milo.com," said Konstantin Shostakovich, manager of Black
Diamond Sports in Palo Alto, Calif. "Reaching potential customers
wherever they may be — whether it's online or right outside the door —
is imperative in order to stay competitive and continue bringing foot
traffic into our store."
eBay plans to integrate Milo's local product feeds into both its online
marketplace and its leading mobile applications, providing millions of
U.S. shoppers with accurate, real-time product pricing and local product
availability inventory. eBay's barcode-scanning iPhone application
RedLaser will soon be available with the addition of Milo local results.
eBay expects that the integration of Milo on both its site and mobile
applications will help consumers find great deals, whether looking to
buy online or in-store. It will also help retailers of all sizes reach a
large volume of shoppers who are researching products online before they
make a purchase decision. Forrester predicts that cross-channel shopping
— researching online, buying offline — sales will be $1.3 trillion and
account for nearly 50% of total retail sales by 2013. 2
Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. eBay does not expect this
acquisition to have a material impact on its financial guidance as
issued in conjunction with its third quarter earnings release on October
20, 2010.
1 ComScore Inc.
2 Forrester Report, "US Online Sales Forecast:
2008-2013", Feb 2, 2009
About eBay
Founded in 1995 in San Jose, Calif., eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) connects
hundreds of millions of buyers and sellers globally on a daily basis
through eBay, the world's largest online marketplace, and PayPal, which
enables individuals and businesses to securely, easily and quickly send
and receive online payments. We also reach millions through specialized
marketplaces such as StubHub, the world's largest ticket marketplace,
and eBay Classifieds sites, which together have a presence in more than
1,000 cities around the world. For more information about the company
and our global portfolio of online brands, visit www.ebayinc.com.
About Milo
Milo is a leading local shopping engine that tracks real-time local
availability and prices and enables shoppers to research products online
and find them in-stock at a local store. The website, Milo.com, also
provides detailed product information and user reviews. Milo currently
tracks millions of products across both hard goods and soft goods
categories and maintains more than 140 merchant relationships, which
account for approximately 50,000 stores in all 50 states. Founded in
2007, the company has offices in Palo Alto, Calif. For more information,
visit www.milo.com.
Forward-Looking Statement
This announcement contains forward-looking statements relating to the
future performance of our businesses that are based on its current
expectations, forecasts and assumptions. These statements include, but
are not limited to, statements regarding eBay's plans for Milo,
including integrating Milo into the eBay.com platform and eBay mobile
applications, increasing product selection, and the expected impact of
eBay's acquisition of Milo on eBay's financial guidance. Those
statements involve risks and uncertainties, and actual results may
differ materially from those discussed. Factors that could cause or
contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to: the
continuing impact of the global economic downturn, changes in political,
business and economic conditions, including any conditions that affect
ecommerce growth; fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates; the
company's ability to profitably integrate, manage and grow Milo and
other businesses that have been acquired recently or may be acquired in
the future; the company's need to increasingly achieve growth from its
existing users, particularly in its more established markets; the
company's ability to deal with the increasingly competitive ecommerce,
mobile commerce and local commerce environment, including competition
for its sellers from other trading sites and other means of selling, and
competition for its buyers from other merchants, online and offline; the
company's need to manage an increasingly large enterprise with a broad
range of businesses of varying degrees of maturity and in many different
geographies; the effect of management changes and business initiatives;
the company's need and ability to manage other regulatory, tax and
litigation risks as its services are offered in more jurisdictions and
applicable laws become more restrictive; any changes the company may
make to its product offerings; the company's ability to upgrade and
develop its systems, infrastructure and customer service capabilities at
reasonable cost; and the company's ability to maintain site stability
and performance on all of its sites while adding new products and
features in a timely fashion.
More information about potential factors which could affect our business
and results is included in eBay's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the
year ended December 31, 2009, its Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, its
Current Reports on Form 8-K, and other periodic filings. All
forward-looking statements are based on information available to eBay on
the date hereof, and eBay assumes no obligation to update such
statements.
eBay Inc.
Press Hotline, 408-376-7458
press@ebay.com
Kathy
Chui, 408-218-9257
katchui@ebay.com
Source: eBay Inc.
News Provided by Acquire Media