Rakuten-owned cashback shopping platform Ebates has acquired ShopStyle from PopSugar, a global media and technology company.
Launched in 2007, ShopStyle started out as a search engine for fashion, becoming an e-commerce marketplace just last year. It now lists 14 million products across apparel, accessories, beauty and home furnishings, driving $1 billion in gross sales to 1,400 retailers.
The platform also powers a network of 14,000 bloggers and social media users called ShopStyle Collective, which gather commission for sales driven to retailers.
For Ebates, it marks the eighth acquisition since inception in 1998, and while terms of the deal haven’t been disclosed, in April 2015 TechCrunch reported that Rakuten had planned to make a bid of $580 million on the parent company PopSugar, though it’s unclear how much ShopStyle would have contributed to that figure.
Growth in fashion
According to Ebates’ CEO, Kevin H. Johnson, the acquisition is set to strengthen the company’s position in product discovery, giving it a firm boost into the fast-growing fashion vertical; “ShopStyle is the leading platform for fashion curation and discovery – and fashion is a key area of growth for Ebates.
“Content commerce is critical to the future of e-commerce, and ShopStyle is the natural fit to help us reach the next level of market leadership,” said Johnson.
Brian Sugar, co-founder and CEO of PopSugar Inc, cited Ebates “established and respected history” as a shopping platform as key driver for the decision to sell ShopStyle, which he hopes to now grow by leveraging Ebates’ e-commerce expertise.
“At the same time, this will provide PopSugar the opportunity to further invest in and double down on our position as the leading global media lifestyle company for young women,” Sugar added.