eBay announced today that it has agreed to acquire location media company WHERE in an effort to better position eBay in the local and mobile commerce spaces.
“Local commerce companies like WHERE are blurring the lines between in-store and online shopping,” said PayPal’s Amanda Pires on the company blog. “By giving people hyper-local, relevant retailer information and deals on their mobile phones, we see a huge opportunity for local merchants to reach more buyers, and for consumers to get more choice and value when they shop.”
“As a first step, we plan to integrate PayPal into the WHERE mobile app to make it even easier for PayPal customers to take advantage of the local deals,” she addeed. “As John Donahoe said at analyst day, eBay Inc. is at the forefront of a new retail landscape, which is more convenient, more accessible, more local and – and more relevant to more consumers than ever before.”
eBay has been making some major moves in terms of expanding throughout the growing e-commercesphere. These include buying Milo, GSI Commerce, Brands4Friends, Critical Path and a majority stake in GittiGidiyor.
“Mobile and local are key areas for us,” said Pires. “This announcement builds on the acquisition of Milo late last year, bringing even more great deals and value to consumers. Since we don’t compete with our merchants, we are in a unique position to partner with retailers of all sizes and help people shop and pay anytime, anywhere and in any way they want.”
@WHERE
WHEREJust to clear things up, eBay was not started because of a pez collection.
21 minutes ago via Twitter for iPhone · powered by @socialditto
From @WHERE’s TwitPic
WHERE has 4 million users, offers local daily deals, and has apps available for the iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Palm, and Windows Phone. The company tells advertisers they can reach 50 million users on their hyper-local ad network.
Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.