BufferBox, a Canadian company that offers self-serve pickup for online purchases, has been bought by Google for an undisclosed sum. Users of the service can pick up their parcels at one of the company’s pickup stations located in train stations and other public places. The company was founded by a trio of University of Waterloo graduates.

A Google spokesperson spoke to the Financial Post, saying: “We want to remove as much friction as possible from the shopping experience, while helping consumers save time and money, and we think the BufferBox team has a lot of great ideas around how to do that.” 

The BufferBox team confirmed the move on the startup’s blog, while promising the service won’t be discontinued, writing:

We have been able to achieve more than we could have ever imagined since we started working on our idea a couple years ago, and the team couldn’t be more excited about the future. As online shopping becomes a bigger part of how you buy products, we look forward to playing a part in bringing that experience to the next level. We are happy to share that it will be business as usual for our users and we are looking forward to continuing to build out the service.

Watch the video below to see how BufferBox works.

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Claudia McNeilly writes for the Toronto Standard. You can follow her on twitter at @claudiamcneilly

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