Google Injects Google Shopping With Amazon Talent In Rangespan Acquisition

Google’s ongoing efforts to bolster its product search portal, Google Shopping, and take on Amazon and Ebay just got another boost. The company has acquired Rangespan, a London based start-up that developed back-end supply chain management software for online retailers. Founded by Amazon veterans, Rangespan’s predictive software helps surface products that are likely to be […]

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Google’s ongoing efforts to bolster its product search portal, Google Shopping, and take on Amazon and Ebay just got another boost. The company has acquired Rangespan, a London based start-up that developed back-end supply chain management software for online retailers.

Founded by Amazon veterans, Rangespan’s predictive software helps surface products that are likely to be hits based on real-time analytics as well as simplify inventory and order management.

A Google spokesperson confirmed the deal and said the team will be joining Google Shopping to improve services for shoppers and retailers. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Rangespan shared the news of the acquisition on its website:

We are very happy to announce that Rangespan is joining Google. We will continue to work on services for shoppers and retailers at Google, and we’re super excited about the opportunities to come.

As part of the change, we will wind down Rangespan’s services. We’ve already begun working individually with each of our retailers and suppliers on this process.

Regan and his co-founder Matt Henderson spent 15 years between them at Amazon. Rangespan’s data scientist, Jurgen Van Gael, is Microsoft alum with a background in developing statistical models and predictive software for Bing.

Rangespan’s customer base included giant retailers in the UK including Staples, Tesco and Argos. It worked like this: Inventory suppliers uploaded their product feeds into Rangespan’s portal, giving online retailers thousands of products to at their disposal. Retailers could choose which products to stock using Rangespan’s search engine. Each product got assigned a “RangeRank score” — its predicted sales potential based on customer behavior signals gathered from other search engines and shopping sites.

The software managed the product set up on retailer sites, and all orders were relayed for shipment by the supplier. Essentially it provided an enormous clearinghouse for retailers that made inventory management more efficient and, presumably, much more profitable.

Here’s an example screenshot of that product search engine for retailers as it appeared on the Rangespan site last month:

Rangespan retailer product search engine

Rangespan’s Product Search Engine For Retailers

There are any number of ways Google might integrate this team and technology into Google Shopping — including the way Product Listing ads are surfaced, and taking a notch out of the Amazon Webstore platform, which gives retailers the benefit of accessing products from Amazon’s massive collection of inventory.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Ginny Marvin
Contributor
Ginny Marvin was Third Door Media’s former Editor-in-Chief (October 2018 to December 2020), running the day-to-day editorial operations across all publications and overseeing paid media coverage. Ginny Marvin wrote about paid digital advertising and analytics news and trends for Search Engine Land, MarTech and MarTech Today. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, Ginny has held both in-house and agency management positions. She can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.

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