It looks like StubHub is getting an upgrade – care of parent company eBay’s latest acquisition.
eBay has snatched up Ticket Utils, a firm that specializes in the software that manages ticket distribution to multiple services. That technology will now be folded into StubHub – though StubHub was already integrated into the system.
“Ticket Utils is already a favorite among ticket sellers because of its ease, reliability and multi-device accessibility,” eBay wrote in a blog post. “Ticket Utils’ platform and feature set are expected to help maximize sell-through and better automate the inventory management process for large sellers on StubHub. Ticket Utils also supports multiple currencies and languages, which will enable sellers to operate more effectively in international markets and take advantage of StubHub’s significant global expansion through our planned acquisition of Ticketbis.”
Ticket Utils is a relatively new firm – the Saddle Brook NJ point-of-sale system for tickets first launched in 2010. Its acquisition supports two goals.
Primarily, it helps StubHub as the popular platform for the resale of tickets moves closer to being a primary platform for ticket sales. More broadly it moves the ball for eBay as it begins to transform itself from being primarily an online auction site into a structured online marketplace better suited to take on its increasingly large competitor Amazon (not to mention the rest of the retail landscape). Other recent acquisitions by eBay include SalesPredict and ExpertMaker.
The terms of the new deal have not been disclosed.
