FACEBOOK HAS BOUGHT shopping search engine The Find.
TheFind bills itself as “the only way to search the entire shoppable web.”
Its proprietary search engine lets you type in something you’re looking to purchase, like a white dress, or a specific type of chair, and it will return results from online retailers such as Target, Nordstrom, Zappos, Amazon, Etsy, Ebay and more.
If consumers want to shop locally, TheFind can return results within their geographic vicinity.
Consumers can easily compare prices between different retailers and save themselves time by not having to scour each individual site.
Unfortunately for users, TheFind’s search engine will be shut down as the company merges with its new owner. The Find team writes of their acquisition:
For the last nine years, we’ve worked hard to bring you a shopping experience that’s easy, efficient and fun – searching all the stores on the web to find just the right products you’re looking to buy.
“We are now starting our next chapter by combining forces with Facebook to do even more for consumers. Facebook’s resources and platform give us the opportunity to scale our expertise in product sourcing to the over 1 billion people that use the platform.”
“Key members of our team are joining the company and will be working hard to integrate our technology to make the ads you see on Facebook every day better and more relevant to you.”
“Unfortunately, this means we will be taking our search engine offline in the next few weeks.”
“Thank you for your loyalty and for making this a fun journey for all of us!”
Facebook confirmed the purchase with a statement released this afternoon. The terms of the deal have not been disclosed.
“We’re excited to welcome TheFind to Facebook,” a Facebook spokesperson wrote. “TheFind’s talented team has built a successful search engine that connects people to products. Together, we believe we can make the Facebook ads experience even more relevant and better for consumers.”
The Find launched in 2006 and USA Today reports that “the comparison shopping site used Facebook ‘Likes,’ clicks on TheFind.com and past shopping searches to customize searches and help shoppers find what they want faster.”
The terms of the deal were not disclosed and its unclear how Facebook will ultimately integrate TheFind’s technology into its system. It’s likely that the social network will leverage TheFind’s recommendation system to better target ads on the site.
According to the Google Play Store, 15 million shoppers use the service.
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