As part of its ongoing efforts to transform itself from a reviews site into an e-commerce platform, Yelp announced today that it has partnered with startup Vimbly to offer activities bookings on its site and apps. Other startups it will work with include GolfNow for golf outings; online florist BloomNation; Vagaro, which books spa treatments; and TableList, which Yelp says is its first nightlife partner.
Yelp has been busy building out its e-commerce offerings through a series of partnerships and acquisitions. For example, last month it announced the purchase of Eat24, a food delivery service, paying a total of $134 million including $75 million in cash.
While Yelp posted revenue and net income improvement in its last earnings report, its growth is still stalling as user engagement slows, which means that the company is increasingly dependent on ad revenue from its overseas business.
It faces competition, however, from a host of other reviews sites, including upstarts like Zomato, which has been expanding worldwide through acquisitions (including the January purchase of IAC’s Urbanspoon in the U.S.), and longtime competitors like Foursquare.
Adding e-commerce offerings to its platform, including on-demand food delivery, gives Yelp another potential source of revenue. It claims that users have booked or ordered services and food from local businesses through its platform a total of 1.5 million times so far.
