Pitney Bowes Pushes Further Into eCommerce With Acquisition

Pushing deeper into the cloud, Pitney Bowes said Tuesday (Jan. 12) that it has broadened its eCommerce offerings by buying software player Enroute Systems Corp.

Though the terms of the deal were not disclosed, The Wall Street Journal said that the movement comes as Pitney Bowes, which has mainly been in the older realms of selling mail meters and printers — in other words, hardware — now has been casting its lot with firms that lessen its historical dependence on packages and documents. That reliance, in part, led the latest quarter sales to decrease by 4 percent year over year, even while digital sales grew by double digits over the same period.

Enroute, for its part, is based in Seattle, where it has developed a transportation management platform that helps retailers with access to speedy and lower cost shipping options. There is also the ability to track packages online, which benefits those consumers who do indeed shop online. The firm, according to WSJ, also helps shipping and logistics companies interact with and manage their business with carriers.

In a statement accompanying the announcement of the deal, Lila Snyder, president of Pitney Bowe’s global eCommerce operations, said: “The expansion of our eCommerce offerings will enable us to help our clients … by connecting a variety of physical and digital processes in the fulfillment management chain.”

The latest deal comes on the heels of research last year from Gartner, which stated that sales of computing services tied to the cloud will grow at a compound annual growth rate of about 29 percent as measured from 2014 to 2019.

Pitney Bowes and its latest acquisition follow the 2015 purchase of Borderfree Inc., which functions to help custom clearance functions for online retailers, through a $395 million deal.

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