Los Angeles — eBay Inc., the largest Internet marketplace, on Tuesday announced that it has acquired New York-based recommendation engine Hunch, to administer more personalized recommendations to its customers and services to shoppers.
Surprisingly, shopping on eBay is about to get more personal: the online auction and retail giant announced that it has purchased Hunch, a start-up established in 2009, which provides customized suggestions to users based on their individual tastes, using information from social media networks and other websites, eBay said in a statement today.
Terms of the acquisition were not revealed. Adding New York-based Hunch to it vast consumers’ wish-list will help improve the shopping and selling experience for customers, eBay said.
According to eBay’s press release, the company will adopt Hunch’s “Taste Graph” to help deliver “significant, yet often non-obvious, recommendations for items available on eBay based on customers’ particular tastes.” The integration of Hunch’s technology will be employed in a variety of ways, including advertising, search and marketing initiatives, says eBay.
“We are engaging consumers in creative ways and attracting top technologists to mould the future of commerce,” said Mark Carges, eBay’s chief technology officer and senior vice president of global products and marketplaces, in a prepared statement.
“With Hunch, we are bringing in new capabilities to personalizing the shopping experience on eBay to the individual relevant tastes and interests of our customers. We expect Hunch’s technologies to benefit eBay shoppers as they browse and buy, and to bring sellers on eBay new ways to connect the right products with the right customers,” Carges added.
Recently, eBay has been actively investing in new products and making acquisitions as part of Chief Executive Officer John Donahoe’s turnaround effort. The e-commerce company is striving to mount a bigger challenge to Amazon.com Inc. by adding merchandise from other vendors and bulking up services such as recommendations, mobile payments and integration with social networks.
“Hunch helps understand what you might like based on who you are,” said Colin Gillis, an analyst at BGC Partners LP in New York. “It could help eBay leapfrog Amazon in that capability.”
In the light of this announcement, Hunch co-founder Chris Dixon said on the company blog Hunch.com will continue to function as a stand-alone site, and the company will retain its base of operations in New York City. In addition, “all Hunch employees” will remain with the company, writes Dixon.
According to Michael Arrington, who broke the story early this morning, eBay paid around $80 million for Hunch, which first launched in 2009. If you already have a Hunch account, but are disturbed by the eBay buyout, and want to delete it, follow these instructions.
Gillis rates eBay “buy,” with a target price of $38.
Here is a video that it explains what it is about:
Hunch Intro – Homepage version from Hunch on Vimeo.