May 6, 2014

Google acquires Rangespan to improve shopping services

It was recently announced that Google has acquired Rangespan as part of an effort to increase its e-commerce efforts, according to Bloomberg. Rangespan, based in London, will be discontinuing its services as the company joins Google.

Rangespan's services, which include using data and analytics to help online retailers improve their services, said in an announcement on the company's website that they would "continue to work on services for shoppers and retailers at Google." The company was founded by former Amazon executives. 

According to a BBC article, Rangespan has previously helped other companies to determine popular products through the use of real-time sales data that allows them to predict the best time to sell certain products. As TechCrunch points out, this service will help Google optimize shopping. The acquisition strategy will help Google improve the product listings of its shopping service. 

With this acquisition strategy, Google looks to expand and improve its online selling services. The acquisition of Rangespan will allow Google to improve its competition against other sites like Amazon and eBay that also allow consumers to search for products online. Rangespan will help Google to manage product listings for online retailers. By adding more features Google could become a bigger competitor in the online shopping world. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Google has made other acquisitions to help the company improve and expand services. Earlier this year, Google acquired Titan Aerospace, a maker of drone technology, to help improve its Google Earth service. By using this technology, the company would be able to provide faster updates to Google Maps because the drones would essentially act as satellites. It would also possibly help to improve the company's imaging capabilities.