EBay acquires social shopping site Svpply

Terms of deal not disclosed, Svpply will continue to exist while employees also work for eBay

Svpply is almost like social network for shopping, where items can be recommended and shared between friends. It's kind of like Pinterest for clothes. The three-year-old company should be getting a boost now that it has been taken over by one of the biggest websites in the world.

Ecommerce website eBay has purchased social shopping startup Svpply, the company announced on its blog Thursday.

An eBay spokesperson would not disclose the terms of the deal, though eBay made it clear that it acquired the startup for both technology, as well as talent.

“With Svpply.com, eBay gains access to technology talent to further improve the shopping and selling experience for its customers. Svpply.com assets – including a talented team of six designers and developers – are well-suited to help eBay advance more personalized experiences and merchandising options on eBay.com,” eBay wrote.

Svpply offers a curated collection of products from stores from around the world. Members can keep track of items they want, as well as discover products through people and stores they follow on the site. Members can also share items they like with friends.

Once they see something that they want to buy, the user is taken to the retailer’s website to complete the purchase. The site currently has 1.1 million products from 75,000 stores, with 3,000 new products being brought in daily.

New York City-based Svpply was founded in 2009 by Vimeo co-founder Zach Klein, along with Ben Pieratt and Eric Jacobsen. The site raised $550,000 in seed funding in November 2010. The company lists its investors as Spark Capital, Founder Collective, Andy Spade, Steven Alan, Jason Hirschhorn, Idan Cohen, Jonathan Kraft, Alex Gezelius, Adam Pritzker, Dennis Crowley and SV Angel.

An eBay spokesperson says that Svpply will continue to exist, and that employees will be working for both Svpply and eBay.

Svpply backs up that assertion on its blog.

“One thing we do want to make clear: Svpply is not going away. We’ll continue to bring our users new products each day — allowing our loyal fans to explore beautiful products and stores, all of them hand selected by the community,” Svpply said.

“Our talented team will help eBay expand its focus on merchandising, discovery and browsing. Together, we’ll work to create improved and personalized experiences and merchandising options for eBay.com.”

According to eBay, “the Svpply.com employees will work on merchandising, non-search discovery and browsing.”

EBay wrote that it is using the purchase of Svpply, as well as its previous purchase of Hunch, as a way to set up a presence in New York City.

EBay purchased Hunch, an online platform that scans user data and offers user recommendations based on taste, in November 2011, for $80 million.

Svpply could not be reached for comment.

(Image source: practicalecommerce.com)