Yahoo Unloads Kelkoo

By Chris Crum - Fri, 11/21/2008 - 14:52

The Price is Right for UK Firm Jamplant

Yahoo-owned comparison shopping site Kelkoo is Yahoo-owned no more. The European service was founded in 1999 and purchased by Yahoo in 2004 for €450 million. Prior to that it had been involved in deals with both Microsoft and Ask.

Yahoo has now sold Kelkoo to a UK-based private-equity firm called Jamplant, TechCrunch reports. According to Wikipedia, Kelkoo has been profitable since the fourth quarter of 2002. The entry says:

On the site itself, it differs from the Google Product Search and PriceRunner model in that it allows retailers to bid for placement in search results. It also covers more categories than most competitors, including clothes, travel, electronics, and auctions from eBay.

In addition to being a price comparison site, Kelkoo is also one of the content providers for SmartShopper.com browser add-on.

That probably made the deal a bit more attractive to the buyer, but the price was probably more attractive. Speculation about the site's sale has been going on for a while, and according to TechCrunch, sources with knowledge of the deal say Jamplant got it for "something less than €100 million."

News Tags: Deals, Yahoo, comparison shopping sites, Kelkoo, ecommerce, Jamplant, online shopping

About the author:
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003.

3 Comments

By Guest (WPN reader) - Wed, 03/11/2009 - 04:16

Yahoo has sold its European

Yahoo has sold its European shopping comparison site, Kelkoo, to a U.K.-based venture company, Jamplat.

The price of the deal was not known, although ex-chief executive Pierre Chappaz claimed on his blog that the sale price was less than 100 million euro, or less than a quarter of the 475 million euro that Yahoo paid in 2004.

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By Guest (WPN reader) - Thu, 02/26/2009 - 04:51

yeah ... terrible business

as matt said in the previous comment, that's just terrible business....the fact that the website and other comparison sites based on commercial partnerships is unethical...
i found one which has all products and you can be pretty sure you find the best price...it is called Twenga : http://www.twenga.co.uk

By matt (WPN reader) - Sun, 11/23/2008 - 22:51

That's just terrible

That's just terrible business! Companies need to be careful what they buy up in the first place. Apparently Yahoo did absolutely nothing with it. I've never heard of it! That kind of business probably put them in the position they are in now. At least now they can keep going a few more months?!