Cloud storage service DropBox has recently announced their purchase of Sold, a US based ecommerce Startup .
Sold was a marketplace concept that allowed anyone who downloaded their iPhone or Android application to sell just about anything. The service worked in a way that the user would take a photo of the item for sale, and make a short description. After that, Sold would evaluate the product and price it accordingly and put the item up for sale. Once sold, a customized package was sent to the seller and pickup was arranged.
The service was intended to simplify online selling for casual users who were not interested in committing to larger marketplace websites, like eBay and Amazon.
Sold announced that as of today, they will be ending their services due to the acquisition. No word yet on any future plans or products, although Sold did mention in their announcement posted on their website that DropBox’s roadmap does coincide with their ideology of creating solutions that affect people.
Sold has been around for about 7 months and has received $1.2 million from startup investors like Google Ventures, Greylock Partners, Matrix Partners and the team at Boston Seed. Within its short lifespan, Sold has shown significant growth with over 2,000 items sold as of September, and saw 50% growth month after month. Although the startup never reached 1 year of activity, the company was estimated to gain $1 million in annual revenue.
We are only left to guess what the cloud service giant is planning for the future, and it will be interesting to see their innovative take on ecommerce. We can only wonder if it will be as innovative as DropBox was when it was introduced.
