eBay buys local shopping site Milo

Online retail giant eBay, yesterday announced that it has acquired Milo, a local shopping site that provides consumers with access to real-time local store inventory and pricing.

eBay did not disclose the financial terms of the acquisition, but industry experts said that Milo is worth around $75 million to $100 million.

Founded in 2007 and based in Palo Alto, California, Milo, a startup website, is a local shopping engine that tracks real-time local availability and prices and enables shoppers to research products online and find them in-stock at a local store.

Its website, Milo.com, also provides detailed product information and user reviews. Milo currently tracks millions of products across both hard goods and soft goods categories and maintains more than 140 merchant relationships

With the acquisition of Milo, eBay said that it strengthens its position as the place where consumers go for their shopping needs.

According to comScore Inc., eBay handled more than 2 billion US product searches in the third quarter. Amazon saw 847 million, while Google handled 226 million product searches over the same period.