PayPal just announced the largest acquisition in its history, and he hopes it will be the sweetest: 4,000 million dollars (3,628 million euros), has been the figure he has paid for Honey, a browser extension that helps its users find coupons and better prices on retail sites.
To have a better perspective of how expensive honey has been for PayPal, we only have to compare the 1,650 million dollars (just over 1,400 million euros) that Google paid in its time for YouTube, or what Facebook paid a quarter for Instagram (1,000 million dollars, just over 900 million euros).
what is honey
But what has Honey done to earn this place among the most expensive acquisitions in history?
You probably don’t know Honey, since it was founded very recently (2012), and it only works as an extension to browse online. honey is a discovery tool that helps consumers find deals and discounts while shopping online.
Honey has continued to grow and evolve, expanding its suite of products and services to include a mobile shopping assistant, deals and rewards program, and price tracking tools and alerts. with approximately 17 million monthly active users, Honey has helped millions of people save more than $1 billion in the past year, according to figures provided by PayPal. Honey currently works with approximately 30,000 online retailers ranging from fashion and technology to travel and pizza delivery.
For PayPal it is extremely valuable since it will be able to Give you accurate data about consumers and what products they are looking for and, above all, what they buy the most. This type of data will be essential for PayPal’s ambitions to become more than just a payment processor to become a reality in less time.
Reasons why Honey is like liquid gold for PayPal
It has already made PayPal available to users as a secure online payment method. Back then, it was one of the few that merchants could add to their websites and offer their consumers secure transactions, but now it’s one of many.
PayPal is now competing with increasingly powerful (and numerous) online payment alternatives: Amazon Pay, Google Pay, Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, Facebook Pay, etc. PayPal has valuable data about the products that consumers buy, but Honey has valuable information about what customers are looking forthe items being priced, and most importantly, the price that converts.
as explained Dan Schulmann, President and CEO of PayPal, “Honey will enable PayPal to reach consumers at the beginning of their Buyer’s Journey and will enhance PayPal’s ability to help merchants acquire and convert consumers by delivering personalized, timely and optimized offers across all channels.
Honey is among the most transformative acquisitions in PayPal’s history. It provides a broad portfolio of services to simplify the consumer shopping experience, while making it more affordable and rewarding.”
Honey will give exclusive offers to PayPal users
According to a press release, PayPal will integrate Honey’s features into its applications, and will offer exclusive offers to its 24 million business partners. Honey will remain headquartered in Los Angeles, US, and co-founders George Ruan and Ryan Hudson will continue to work with PayPal’s product and technology team.
Honey is not the only PayPal purchase aimed at offering more offers and rewards for both retailers and end customers. It has an alliance with WalMartand in addition to allowing online payment in its supermarket line in Mexico, in the United States it has implemented ATMs in all Walmart physical stores, which allows its users to deposit or withdraw cash from their PayPal accounts.
The question that now remains in the air is, will Honey’s data be enough to justify its high price?
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