EBay buys shopping research site Decide.com

EBay has acquired price forecasting and shopping research company Decide, the company confirmed today. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Decide provides consumers with a set of analytics that can help predict whether they should buy a product now or wait for it to drop in price. The company claims to sift through more than 230 terabytes of data to find the best-rated products from every major retailer in the United Sates. It makes sense for eBay to purchase the company because it will now have access to Decide’s technology, which could prove very useful to consumers watching items on eBay’s online auction site.

“Over the past year, we began experimenting with eBay and discovered an exciting opportunity to apply our team’s strength in data and predictive analytics to help over 25 million eBay sellers make smarter decisions and be more successful,” Decide CEO Mike Fridgen wrote in a blog post today.

Decide will shut down its website Sept. 30, but will continue to provide all of its tools through eBay. All 26 members of Decide are expected to join eBay as a result of the sale, working from eBay’s new Seattle office. The only person who won’t be joining eBay is Decide cofounder and CTO Oren Etzioni, who will go on to lead the Paul Allen-backed Artificial Intelligence Institute.

Founded in 2011, the Seattle-based startup raised a total of $17 million in funding to date from Vulcan Capital, Maveron, and Madrona Venture Group. That includes its most recent $8 million round raised back in March.