EBay Invests in Location Based Service
According to news reports, ecommerce giant, EBay, has just acquired a location based media company. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed and the deal is expected to be closed during the second quarter of 2011 according to media reports on wholesale US news.
The media giant which has raised nearly $ 20 million in funding is known for building location based mobile apps across every mobile device platform that includes Android, iPhone and Blackberry. It has about four million active users a month. Local listings for restaurants, bars, merchants and events are shown by the apps which also suggest places and the best deals based on your location and past behavior.
Wholesale USA news reports also suggest that the location based media company being acquired by EBay allow advertisers to show their mobile ads only to people near the store or in some cases when they are close to competitor outlets, after the user opts to see these ads. The network of the media company being acquired is currently being used by more than 120,000 retailers, brands and small merchants to reach newer audiences and deliver visitors to their store in real time.
The acquisition represents the need for EBay to keep investing in multichannel ecommerce and also for the online to offline experience according to EBay sources. This is an attempt to sync technologies where the mobile apps will be used on EBay payment gateways as a payment mechanism for local deals.
Online industry experts opine that the deal is not surprising considering the massive push by EBay into local commerce and online to offline shopping. It is clear that EBay is moving into geo-targeted ads and offers as the media company it is acquiring, was granted a patent recently related to geofencing.
This news reports reveal that theoretically now EBay can track mobile ads from impressions to purchase which can make it very powerful considering the gigantic market size of both mobile advertising and mobile e-commerce.