eBay buys Twice, parts ways with PayPal and reinforces its fashion strategy

eBay is taking its quest to become a big player within the fashion industry quite serious. The giant online retailer has acquired Twice, an online secondhand clothing marketplace, to help power eBay Valet, an assisted-selling service connected to eBay's marketplace.

Founded in 2012, Twice is a start-up backed by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz that sells brand-name used clothes online. Its website touts that customers can save up to 90 percent on big-named brands such a J. Crew, Coach, and Calvin Klein.

As reported by ‘Re/Code’, an eBay spokesperson confirmed the deal, and said the company will be acquiring some of Twice’s technology as well as 10 of its 40 full-time employees. The Twice website will shut down later this month, eBay advanced.

Twice co-founders Noah Ready-Campbell and Calvin Young will be joining eBay’s seller experience team and Twice’s technology will be integrated into the eBay Valet assisted-selling service, which recently started accepting used clothing. A source referred to the deal as an “‘acqhire’ for [the] most part.”

Since its launch three years ago, Twice has raised more than 23 million dollars from private investors such as Jeff Jordan of Andreessen Horowitz, Great Oaks Venture Capital, IA Ventures, Felicis Ventures and Lerer Venture. eBay’s current market valuation stands at 35.3 billion dollars.

So where is heading eBay to with its fashion venture?

eBay will reportedly use some of Twice's technology and integrate it with eBay Valet, which accepts items from potential sellers and sells them on their behalf for a split of the proceeds. eBay Valet recently started accepting secondhand clothing.

As a result of the acquisition, Twice said it will wind down its current website, apps and operations. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The online secondhand clothing market is a very competitive sector, with start-ups like Shop Hers, Tradesy, ThredUp and Poshmark holding a market share similar to Twice’s, which may have made teaming up with eBay more attractive. eBay has also lost business to these start-ups and is looking to woo more clothing sellers to the site, highlight market insiders.

CEO Noah Ready-Campbell and Chief Technology Officer Calvin Young co-founded San Francisco-based Twice in 2012 to create an online consignment shop for women’s clothing. Ready-Campbell and Young will join eBay’s seller experience team.

“Over the past three and a half years, so much has changed. We’ve expanded from women’s clothing to shoes, handbags and men’s fashion,” they wrote in a blog post. “We’ve bought and sold millions of pieces of clothing from customers in every state and a dozen countries. And we’ve attracted some of the best investors, advisers and employees in the world.”

The deal comes mere days after eBay officially spun off its PayPal holding, which was once its fastest-growing segment, highlights ‘Forbes’.

The e-commerce giant has recently taken Wall Street by storm after reporting strong second-quarter results with revenue hiking by 7 percent, ahead of market’s expectations.

Likewise, eBay also delivered an optimistic yearly forecast with an expected revenue growth of between 3 and 5 percent.

On another note, and keeping up with its plans to keep up the competition with the likes of Amazon, eBay has entered into a definitive agreement to sell its eBay enterprise unit to a private equity firm.