It looks like Google is picking up the pace on acquisitions again. Sure, one of them wasn’t real, but earlier this week, there was one legitimate Google acquisition announcement with news that the company has acquired Incentive Targeting. Now, news is out that Google has acquired BufferBox, a locker service for people getting packages from online retailers.
A post on the BufferBox blog (via TechCrunch) says:
We are excited to announce that BufferBox has been acquired by Google!
We have been able to achieve more than we could have ever imagined since we started working on our idea a couple years ago, and the team couldn’t be more excited about the future. As online shopping becomes a bigger part of how you buy products, we look forward to playing a part in bringing that experience to the next level. We are happy to share that it will be business as usual for our users and we are looking forward to continuing to build out the service.
It has been an incredible journey and we’d like to thank everyone who has played such an important part in enabling us to make it this far. We couldn’t be happier to be able to continue building out our vision within Google.
TechCrunch provides the following statement from a Google spokesperson: “We want to remove as much friction as possible from the shopping experience, while helping consumers save time and money, and we think the BufferBox team has a lot of great ideas around how to do that”
Amazon, one of Google’s biggest competitors (in some spaces) has a locker service, which it has been expanding. These lockers have been seen in grocery stores, drug stores and convenience stores like 7-Eleven (which are open 24 hours).
BufferBox allows users to register for a locker shipping address and have items shipped to it. You simply enter that address as the shipping address for any online purchases you might make, and than pick up your packages at your convenience, using your PIN, which the company emails you.
They have a free trial going on right now, and the first delivery is free for new customers. It will be interesting to see how Google implements the lockers as a Google service, or whether they’ll just continue to operate it as is. No word on the terms of the deal.
