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EBay Agrees to Purchase Shopping.com SAN FRANCISCO, June 1 - EBay, the online marketplace, said on Wednesday that it had agreed to buy Shopping.com, an online comparison shopping site, for $620 million. The move comes amid a slowdown in eBay's revenue growth, especially in the United States and is seen as a way for the company to increase traffic and sales on its site. EBay said it would pay $21 a share for Shopping.com, a 20 percent premium to its closing price of $17.44. "We approached Shopping.com a few weeks ago, and the more we saw, the more we liked," said Bill Cobb, president of eBay North America. Shopping.com, which went public last October, is a relatively small business that is not expected to have a large impact on eBay's bottom line. Shopping.com earned $12.2 million on revenue of less than $100 million last year, while eBay earned $778 million on revenue of $3.3 billion. Instead, the deal is seen as a way for the company to expose its sellers to new buyers who come to Shopping .com in search of product information and price comparisons. EBay collects a commission on each item sold on its site. "This will enable our sellers to get access to a whole new set of sellers," Mr. Cobb said. "I also think this will greatly enhance the buyer experience as well." Shopping.com and its various properties had 14.6 million unique visitors in April, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. Shopping.com's service is free to users. The company generates most of its money by charging merchants who use Shopping.com to drive traffic to their Web sites. EBay has no plans to merge the two sites or initiate any sweeping changes in the Shopping .com site, Mr. Cobb said. News Sourcehttp://www.nytimes.com
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