There’s been a steady parade of mergers and acquisitions involving e-commerce companies going strong for most of the fall this year, so it’s not all that surprising that there’s another one now to talk about.
This one involves the price comparison website Nextag, which announced today that it has acquired NextCoupons.com, an online coupon provider out of Santa Monica, CA. The deal is just the latest in a series of technological development moves and acquisitions made by Nextag as part of the company’s ongoing growth strategy.
Financial terms of the purchase are not presently being made public.
“Our acquisition of NextCoupons.com is a step along the path to improve the Nextag consumer experience as well as significantly increase the return on investment we provide to merchants for their marketing dollar,” said Jeffrey Katz, Nextag’s CEO. “We’re working to change the notion of shopping in a way that brings in more consumers, and is much better for merchants than what is available in today’s marketplace. This acquisition takes us a small step forward towards our promise that consumers are going to love shopping at Nextag.”
The online coupon business is a prosperous one. Nielson estimated that in 2009 alone, web coupon usage grew by a whopping 263 percent and with more retailers making coupons available, the rate of use is sure to rise as well in the near future.
NextCoupons.com’s platform allows users to create an account so they can share coupons and special offers with other frugal shoppers visiting the site. On the retailer side, the company gives merchants direct access to the site’s entire coupon inventory and a full management console where they can post new coupons and codes and view the statistics and results of earlier coupon campaigns as well.
With such a comprehensive offering, it would seem like adding NextCoupons is a perfect fit for Nextag, which consistently ranks as one of the most-trafficked comparison shopping engines out there. Nextag’s strategic development plans seem to be all about building out their existing price comparison model to add as many features as possible as well as provide a more enjoyable social and personalized shopping experience. Bringing coupons into the mix certainly seems to fit the bill.
“NextCoupons.com’s technology fits perfectly into Nextag’s strategic vision to enhance the online shopping experience through greater personalization and social media features,” said Joseph Raffetto, NextCoupons.com’s CEO.
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