ShopExchange: Amazon, eBay and QVC on Shopping Spree

Lots of activity at the "Online Shop Exchange".  Amazon, eBay and QVC parent company Liberty Media are busier than ever stocking up on online businesses.  Particularly high on their shopping lists are underperforming niche etailers and innovative high tech startups:

• Amazon announced to take over Fabric.com (see press release) to tone up its needlework and handcraft area (via).

At the beginning of the year, Amazon already bought out audio book shop Audible and recently made some investments in startups like Animoto and The Talk Market.

• As reported by The Next Web blog last week, "Ebay secretly acquires visual media company VUVOX" (via).  Such a company fits well to the planned capsulizing of eBay site elements into widgets and apps.

In an interview with BusinessWeek in March, eBay’s mergers chief Lorraine McDonough stated that eBay is on the lookout for take over targets to complement its core business.  In January, eBay bought Fraud Sciences for $169 million. 

In total, eight or nine acquisitions are expected this year, roughly double the usual amount.

• Recently, the QVC parent Liberty Media not only took over the remains of insolvent gift website RedEnvelope (see press release), but also last week announced a $31 million cash take over of Celebrate Express, a specialty mail order company for party supplies (via).  The enterprise most recently registered an annual revenue of $85 million.  John Cook has some good background info.

"The Celebrate Express acquisition represents another step in our stated strategy to acquire niche e-commerce businesses whose value we can enhance," says Michael Zeisser, senior vice president of Liberty Media.

Related posts:

• ShopExchange: When Will QVC Acquire HSN?
• Amazon Invests In Video Shopping Platform The Talk Market
•  Backcountry Launches Chainlove, Its Third “One Deal at a Time” Site

Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, translated by Jason Soo.