Google Buys Retailer Tool Rangespan to Find Surprise Hit Products, Like Dog Seat Belts

Google has acquired Rangespan, a startup that helped retailers decide what new products to sell, both companies said today and as previously reported by TechCrunch.

Based in London and founded in 2011 by former Amazon employees, Rangespan provided a database of some 210 million products ranked by predicted future sales to U.K. retailers and suppliers.

It worked to find surprise hit products and categories, like dog seat belts (the trick: Monitor customer searches across thousands of suppliers, like Amazon does in its marketplace).

The company had raised $5 million from Octopus Investments in 2012.

Rangespan said it would wind down its products and “continue to work on services for shoppers and retailers at Google.” A source said the team will join Google Shopping and focus on analytics for retail customers.

Here’s a video that explains what Rangespan did:

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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