Facebook Enters E-Commerce by Buying TheFind

The social network platform has made an important step by purchasing TheFind, a Mountain View shopping site. Facebook intends to include selling products in its services by using TheFind`s shopping search engine.

It is an action that follows the 11 year old company`s attempts to benefit from search and e-commerce, which are one of the best services for making money.

Facebook has announced the deal on Friday, but the company refused to make public the price for which they bought TheFind. It is not the first initiative to get search and shopping available on Facebook, but until now, their attempts failed and haven`t been as practical as the platform`s most important feature: connecting people by letting them share posts and photos.

Improving the digital advertising business of Facebook was the target that both parts of the deal stated they intend to reach. Facebook is a big name in this industry, with 12.6 billion dollars in ad sales reported for 2014.

“Together, we believe we can make the Facebook ads experience even more relevant and better for consumers,”

the company said, referring to their newest acquisition. TheFind also made a similar comment. They stated that the technology they have developed is to be integrated into the social network “to make the ads you see on Facebook every day better and more relevant to you.”.

″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.″

TheFind team wrote on its homepage.

TheFind, which was launched in 2006, thanked the users for loyalty and for a fun journey. For nearly 10 years, the company has provided search and shopping services, by allowing the users to see offers from various marketers and helping them choose the best bid. Some of the people who worked for TheFind will now become Facebook employees.

“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,”,

the company stated.

Facebook has intended to become an important player in search several times, and they had both discouraging and positive results. The company enthusiastically launched Graph Search in 2013. But the search engine did not meet the expectations. Mark Zuckerberg admitted that in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, within which he stated that Graph Search works well less than 50 per cent of the time.

The list of Facebook`s failed attempts to enter search and e-commerce business continues. In 2012, the company was refused when they asked important retailers to sell their products on Facebook. Also, Facebook Gifts was shut down in 2014, even if its launch made a lot of fuss. However, it turned out to be unproductive.

Since last year`s July, Facebook has started to test a Buy button, which allows users to purchase goods immediately. TheFind`s technology represents a plus, once integrated into Facebook it will add more options to this service.

On the other hand, Google has offered search and e-commerce services for a long time. They have launched Google shopping in 2012, a rebranding of the initial service. It featured results from retailers who paid to be included on Google`s list.

Image Source: Android Authority