eBay buys Shutl to bring same-hour delivery to eBay Now

eBay is trying its hardest to make sure that it, not Amazon, leads the future of same-day delivery.

And it has just acquired UK-based same-day delivery company Shutl for an undisclosed amount, it announced today.

Working alongside retailers, Shutl’s service lets shoppers get their online orders delivered not just on the same day, but within the hour. In fact, as of earlier this year, Shutl’s delivery record was just 15 minutes, making same-day delivery sound pretty ancient in comparison.

To put it another way, Shutl’s approach is closer to getting a pizza delivery than an UPS shipment.

“I have the utmost appreciation for the eBay team and am excited and honored for Shutl to be a part of their plans, starting today in Chicago,” Shutl CEO Tom Allason said in a blog post today.

With this move, eBay aims to give itself a major leg up in the same-day shipping world, which is populated by efforts from Amazon and Google, which has been testing a similar service.

While Shutl has raised $8.69 million since its launch in 2008, getting acquired by eBay means that it can speed up its roll-out to more retailers — particularly internationally — as well as accelerate its new product development.

“Expectations about shipping speed are moving fast. It’s quite simply inevitable that consumers are going to want something better than same-day. They just don’t know it yet,” Shutl CEO Tom Allason told VentureBeat back in May.