PayPal has completed the acquisition of the deal-finding browser add-on company Honey Science Corporation in a $4 billion deal. This is the largest acquisition for the company in its 20-year history.
The e-commerce startup Honey has around 17 million active users per month for whom it provides deal-browser extension services to navigate them through the best prices from over 30,000 online merchants. The browser app also allows Honey’s customers to find lucrative deals on Amazon, cashback and price drop deals, and more.
The primary reason for the acquisition as explained by PayPal is that it definitely sees value in combining the rewards and shopping with payments as the deal will allow both PayPal and Venmo (PayPal’s two sided-network) to provide new technology and offerings to customers. Transformation of the shopping experience is another reason why the $4 billion deal makes sense for PayPal and its 275 million users.
Honey has become quite popular among online shoppers as the app allows coupon codes to be automatically applied at checkout. The revenue of Honey, as reported by press, has also grown from $100 million in 2012 to $200 million in 2019.
Another interesting side of the acquisition is that PayPal will be able to serve its customers from beginning to end, i.e. being present throughout the entire shopping experience of the customer – from discovery to checkout.
PayPal is undeniably facing more competition in the e-commerce space, as tech giants are constantly improving their payment offerings and solutions for customers. Examples of such companies are Samsung and Apple.
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