According to a recent report from Business Insider (via 9to5Mac), Apple is considering acquiring e-commerce social network The Fancy – a Pinterest-like site where users can “fancy” various products, and then receive the option to purchase those items, often at discounted prices.
The official company description of The Fancy is as follows:
Fancy is part store, blog, magazine and wishlist. It’s a place to discover great stuff, to curate a collection of things you love, to get updates on your favorite brands and stores and to share your discoveries. Use it to create a catalog of your favorite things around the web and around the world. When you find something you love somewhere on the web, Fancy it.
According to Business Insider, the main goal of the purchase would be for Apple to gain entrance in the e-commerce market, providing a convenient way for their users to manage online purchases, as well as providing Apple an additional source of revenue.
Entering into e-commerce would be a solid move for Apple, especially considering that they already have over 400 million iTunes accounts with credit cards on file, potentially granting them a significant chunk of change in internet sales dollars.
The report also notes that a meeting has already been held between Apple CEO Tim Cook and the creator of The Fancy at the Sun Valley conference, where Cook also met with other social networking heads, such as Twitter and Square exec Jack Dorsey, an executive for Twitter and Square. Tim Cook has also been found to be a verified user of The Fancy.
It’s likely that the acquisition would be very affordable for Apple as well, as the company only has 20 employees. Even so, it’s unclear how serious the talks were, or if Apple is still considering the acquisition.
Would you appreciate a tool like The Fancy being more closely integrated into iOS or OS X?
