Yahoo! buys social shopping website Polyvore

Yahoo has announced on Friday that it has reached an agreement to purchase social shopping site Polyvore.

On Polyvore, users put together sets of clothing, accessories, and lifestyle goods that express their love for style and shopping in a compelling, digital, social setting.

And while the deal is clearly a positive sign for “social shopping”, it’s still not certain social sites can monetize through ecommerce alone – Yahoo will roll out the Polyvore advertising platform across its entire network by integrating with Yahoo Gemini, Lee told TechCrunch.

The press release also says that the deal will greatly help Yahoo with advertising and digital sales/distribution, by incorporating more than 350 retailers with the buy.

“The combination of Yahoo’s exclusive, premium content with Polyvore’s expertise on community-driven experiences and retailer-supported commerce has wonderful potential”, said Mayer.

Once the leading portal on the Internet, Yahoo is now struggling to ramp up its mobile and advertising businesses after being outpaced by the likes of Google and Facebook.

Polyvore was founded in 2007 by Jianing Hu, Guangwei Yuan and Pasha Sadri, former engineers at Yahoo.

Polyvore’s service will keep operating after the Yahoo acquisition goes through so it won’t affect users.

Polyvore’s website will continue to operate after the deal is completed, according to Yahoo.

“Polyvore has built an excellent team, a category-leading product, and a strong business based on a highly engaged community”, Yahoo! senior vice-president of publisher products, Simon Khalaf, said in a statement. Under Lee’s watch, Polyvore raised a total of $22.1 million in funding from investors including Goldman Sachs, DAG Ventures and Matrix Partners.