EBay Buys Milo.com to Win Users Seeking Local Deals

EBay Inc., owner of the second-most visited U.S. e-commerce site, said it bought shopping engine Milo.com to help it reach more consumers looking for products in nearby stores and browsing for bargains with mobile phones.

Milo.com helps consumers find items in stock at local stores and EBay will weave the technology into its existing marketplace and mobile applications, the San Jose-based company said today in a statement. It didn’t disclose deal terms.

EBay Chief Executive Officer John Donahoe, halfway through a three-year turnaround campaign, is looking for ways to use the company’s $5.4 billion in cash to lure customers and narrow a growth gap with Amazon.com Inc., the e-commerce leader.

“Local commerce companies like Milo are blurring the lines between in-store and online shopping,” Mark Carges, a senior vice president at EBay, said in the statement.

Milo.com, based in Palo Alto, California, will help EBay add products to its online marketplace and help consumers find the best prices, the company said.

EBay raised $1.5 billion through the sales of bonds in October, saying the proceeds may be used for acquisitions.

Milo.com, founded in 2007, aggregates products from 140 merchants and about 50,000 stores in the U.S.

EBay rose 65 cents, or 2.2 percent, to $29.91 at 4 p.m. New York time in trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

To contact the reporter on this story: Joseph Galante in San Francisco at jgalante3@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net