• Bussiness Insider, Thursday, December 2, 2010 12:46 PM

EBay is in the process of acquiring local shopping site Milo.com for $75 million, sources tell Business Insider. Milo.com is a shopping search engine that lets online users search through the stock of local brick & mortar retailers. Given that eBay owns Shopping.com, Business Insider calls the rumored deal "a nice fit."

If true, the grab also likely reflects eBay's interest in the local, real-world retail business -- a white hot market as evidenced by Google's reported $6 billion offer to buy Groupon. "Anything that allows small retailers to market online without having to build a Web site or make any cash outlays is hot in e-commerce these days," Business Insider writes. "There's also some possible synergy with eBay's Red Laser mobile app, which allows people to take pictures of bar codes and get price comparisons." Milo's investors including Keith Rabois, Ron Conway, Chris Dixon, Aydin Senkut, Aaron Patzer, and Jawed Krim, to name a few.

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