Online retail platform has 15 million users.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: Social media titan Facebook Inc. has acquired Indian American founded price comparison website TheFind for an undisclosed amount.
Founded in 2006 by chief executive Siva Kumar and chief technical officer Shashikant Khandelwal, the Mountain View, California-based company has gained popularity in recent years as e-commerce continues to gain even more traction against traditional brick-and-mortar retail outlets.
“When we built the site, the goal was to reach as many people as possible,” Kumar told Internet Retailer Magazine. “We have 15 million users. Facebook has a billion. There was no way we could get to that size. When Facebook comes calling, you listen.”
TheFind enabled consumers to get personalized recommendations while searching through its massive database of products. According to TechCrunch, users could also discover places to buy their chosen product locally if they wanted it immediately.
Adweek reports TheFind’s online aggregator is the only comparison shopping platform with retail and product trawling capabilities that rival the Google Shopping platform.
In fact, Google looks to lose the most from Facebook’s latest acquisition. In a recent survey of 1,500 U.S. online shoppers, Adweek found that 44.6 percent of consumers go to Amazon directly when they know they want to buy something online, compared to 39.1 percent that head to Google.
Hence, the prospect of Facebook’s pointed incursion into retail advertising creates a direct threat to the revenue that Google Adwords and Google Shopping generate from retailers.
TheFind had previously raised $26 million since it got off the ground, but will be shutting down its existing search portal as it is integrated into Facebook’s ecosystem. According to TheFind’s website, key members of their team will be joining Facebook to help make its advertising platform “more relevant.”