A version of this news brief was initially posted on Demand Gen Report.
EBay has agreed to acquire SalesPredict, an Israel-based predictive analytics company. The acquisition is intended to support eBay’s artificial intelligence, machine learning and data science efforts. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
As Amazon continues to use data to offer product recommendations that can benefit both the retailer and the consumer, all while dynamically pricing its products, eBay is seeking tools that make the marketplace experience more relevant for consumers.
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“EBay has a major effort underway to better understand our inventory [and] our structured data process,” said Abby Smith, Senior Director of Corporate Communications at eBay. “This acquisition will help us have greater insights into the inventory. It will help us understand which inventory and product attributes we should emphasize.”
With more than 900 million listings online, eBay aims to use the SalesPredict platform to further identify which attributes affect the price of specific products.
“SalesPredict’s deep expertise in predictive analytics and machine learning will contribute to eBay’s structured data efforts,” said Amit Menipaz, VP and General Manager of Structured Data at eBay. “For our buyers, it will help us better understand the price differentiating attributes of our products, and for our sellers, it will help us build out the predictive models that can define the probability of selling a given product at a given price over time.”
Upon the close of the transaction, some of SalesPredict’s employees will join eBay’s structured data organization, working from eBay’s Israeli Development Center in Netanya. SalesPredict Co-Founder and CEO Yaron Zakai-Or will serve as a Director of Product Management, Technology, and SalesPredict Co-Founder and CTO Kira Radinsky will become Director of Data Science & Chief Scientist, eBay Israel.
Zakai-Or and Radinsky co-founded SalesPredict in 2012.