eBay today announced it has acquired Svpply.com for an undisclosed amount. This is both a technology and talent acquisition: the New York startup’s six employees are getting new jobs. Other terms of the deal have not yet been disclosed.
eBay says Svpply.com is a perfect fit as it “brings shoppers, tastemakers and merchants together onto a single site by offering a curated selection of stylish merchandise from across the Web.” Svpply.com users recommend their discoveries to other users and display galleries of items they want or own. In other words, it’s a less mundane, more personalized version of eBay.
The site’s About page has some impressive statistics that certainly caught eBay’s eye:
- Every one of the 1.1 Million products in our Shop section has been selected by hand by one of our members, and brought to our site using our bookmarklet.
- We bring in a little over 3,000 new products a day from all across the web.
- We unofficially represent over 70,000 stores and brands. We are actively working towards giving them access to their inventory and their audience.
Svpply.com is co-founded by Zach Klein, the co-founder of Vimeo, as well as Ben Pieratt and Eric Jacobsen. Its investors include Spark Capital, Founder Collective, Andy Spade, Steven Alan, Jason Hirschhorn, Idan Cohen, Jonathan Kraft, Alex Gezelius, Adam Pritzker, Dennis Crowley, and SV Angel.
We first covered Svpply.com back in November 2010, when we called it “windowshopping online.” Here’s an excerpt that elaborates on this:
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To get started on Svpply, search for apparel, accessories, shoes, tech, media, home stuff and sort by gender and price. Once you see stuff you like, add it to your list, and maybe follow whomever posted it. On Svpply, all of the content is uploaded by users, which you can add through an easy to use bookmark. On the site, you can follow both individuals and stores. In addition, Svpply provides sections for Editor’s pick, Gift guides and Popular this week for your browsing pleasure.
Like an item a lot? You can email it to a friend or share it on Twitter and Facebook. You can also browse other posted items by the user as it’s likely you have similar taste (think Hunch). Click buy and the site takes you to the retailer’s website. It is minimal shopping at its finest.
Speaking of Hunch, eBay owns that too, as of November 2011: eBay acquires ‘taste graph’ startup Hunch for a reported $80m. In fact, eBay says the two deals are related, as they both help the company in “establishing a sustainable presence in New York City.”
Update: “I’m immensely proud of the Svpply team, and the community that’s joined us in our pursuit to help great products find loving audiences,” Svpply.com’s Greg Leppert told TNW. “We’re excited to keep building Svpply at the new eBay development center here in New York, where they’ve promised to buy us an Eleven Forty Co. foosball table that features our likenesses facing off against those of Hunch.”
Image credit: stock.xchng
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