Confirmed: eBay buys Milo.com

Faith Merino · December 2, 2010 · Short URL: https://vator.tv/n/1464

Sources close to the deal say eBay is acquiring the "anti-Amazon" site

Update: Milo.com founder Jack Abraham has confirmed via Twitter that eBay has purchased the company.

"It's official. Milo.com is extremely excited to join the eBay family!!" Abraham tweeted, followed by: "Within eBay we will complete our mission of bringing every product, on every shelf, of every store in the physical world onto the internet."

Local shopping site Milo.com may be joining the eBay family, Business Insider reported Thursday morning.  Sources close to the deal confirmed with BI that the Web auction giant is acquiring Milo.com for $75 million.

Founded in 2008, Milo.com has raised $4.95 million from such big name investors as Ron Conway, Keith Rabois, Kevin Hartz, Jawed Karim, and more.  The site, termed the “anti-Amazon,” allows Web users to find items in stock at their local brick-and-mortar stores.  The site offers product and price information for more than three million items across 52,000 U.S. stores. 

In November, the site aggregated over 5,000 Black Friday deals, ranging from toys and electronics to power-tools and household items.   The site normally sees approximately one million unique monthly visitors, on average, but that number peaks in the days surrounding Black Friday.  Last year, the site saw 250,000 visitors between Thursday and Monday, alone.  The company was not immediately available for comment.

Milo.com’s CEO, Jack Abraham, is only 24 years old.

The company has made a few changes that it expects will drive up usage, including  new distribution deals such as those through PriceGrabber, Yellowbook and Consumer Reports, newly added local coupons, and greater coverage of products and stores.

Concurrent with the company’s aggregation of Black Friday deals, it also launched the Milo Local Shopping app for Android devices, allowing shoppers to see if their desired item is in stock at a nearby store using their Android phone.

This will not be the first time that eBay has shown interest in a company that works with local businesses.  The company recently partnered with Groupon to bring local daily deals to eBay users, who now have the opportunity to earn eBay bucks by purchasing Groupon deals through the online auction site. 

Image source: milo.com

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Faith Merino

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Milo.com is the free Web site that enables shoppers to research online and buy local – providing the best of both worlds. It combines the advantages of an Amazon-like experience with the ability to touch, feel and get products now at a local retailer. It provides all of the product details and user reviews people have come to expect with online shopping, and then searches store shelves to find the best price and availability for the products shoppers want – right when they want them.

 

Milo.com’s direct customers are top, nationally-distributed retailers, including Best Buy, Nordstrom, Target, Walmart, and dozens of others.

 

Milo.com’s features include:

    • In-stock search filters that allow shoppers to view only in-stock products in the search results and, through an experience comparable to travel site kayak.com, know instantly whether the item they want is currently available at a store near them.
    • Price alerts that notify shoppers the moment a chosen product at a local store reaches a price they are willing to pay.
    • Distance filters that enable shoppers to pinpoint the stores closest to an exact address that stock the items they want.
    • Real-time availability and price updates so that shoppers never miss out on a sale or drive to a store that no longer has the item in-stock.
    • Price comparison across local stores that allows shoppers to find the retailer closest to them with the best price for the product they want.

o   Sale tracking to find real-time sale prices for more than 2 million products at national and regional stores throughout the country.

 

The Milo.com shopper values information, time and money, and uses the site to make a well-researched decision not only on what to buy, but where to buy it to optimize value, enable trial and have it in-hand immediately.

 

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