Apple is reportedly looking into expanding its e-commerce footprint by possibly acquiring Pinterest competitor, The Fancy.
The Fancy is backed by co-founders of Twitter and Facebook (Jack Dorsey and Chris Hughes respectively), according to a Business Insider report. The site works on similar principles to Pinterest, although rather than pinning an item to a board, users can “fancy it” and add it to a wish list.
The site also links to the actual purchase transaction for products featured, and takes a 10% cut of sales. The Fancy also recently added a new feature that allows users to get a cut of sales generated from their lists.
At the end of May, The Fancy revealed it had reached one million users and was reportedly making an average of $50 000 each week from users purchasing products that they 'fancy'. The site introduced one-click purchases shortly thereafter. The Fancy is available as both a mobile app and on the Web.
Business Insider claims the objective of acquiring a service like The Fancy, would be for Apple to leverage its more than 400 million users with credit card details on file with Apple's iTunes with new shopping opportunities.
Apple recently unveiled iOS 6, which includes the PassBook digital wallet which can store users' tickets, credit cards, store cards and loyalty cards. It has been noted that acquiring The Fancy could mean that Apple would have a means of allowing users to actually use their digital wallet to make purchases.
Apple CEO Tim Cook is said to have joined the service himself after meeting its co-founder and CEO Joe Einhorn at Allen & Co's Sun Valley conference earlier this year. The Fancy currently has 20 employees.
While The Fancy, Apple, Dorsey and Hughes have all declined to comment on the acquisition rumours, analysts have already begun speculating that Apple-driven e-commerce could gain traction and beat similar offerings from rivals like Facebook.
The competitive-edge is said to come from the fact that Apple customers are already familiar with making micro-purchases through iTunes and the App Store, and are therefore more likely to seamlessly make the jump to larger purchases.
The latest acquisition rumours follow reports at the end of last month that Apple had been in talks with Twitter last year about a possible strategic investment in the popular social network. While it emerged that the talks had been fruitless, it reignited speculation about Apple's intentions to improve its standing in the social media space.
Cook has been widely quoted as recently saying: “Apple doesn't have to own a social network. But does Apple need to be social? Yes.”
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