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Spreets is first major site to drop out of group buying market

spreets email

The Spreets email to consumers

Deals website Spreets this week told its subscribers it is moving to a new business model which effectively sees it leave the group buying market.

The move – which sees the Seven West Media-affiliated Spreets the first major casualty of the brutal group buying war, comes just two years after Yahoo!7 bought it for $40m.

Instead, Spreets will become a list broker – emailing consumers on its database with offers from elsewhere. The customers will deal directly with those businesses.

Customers who have bought Spreets credits have just a fortnight to spend them.

The move does not come as a major surprise. it was reported before Christmas that Spreets had made most of its staff redundant as the group buying space consolidated.

According to details on its website, Spreets will send out offers already being promoted by other group buying sites.

It said:

“We’re making some exciting changes to the way Spreets works. We’re partnering with a range of group buying sites to bring you the best of their deals.

“We’ll hand pick the offers that we know you’ll love to bring you the cream of the bargain crop.

“We’ll continue to offer Spreets deals until 28 February 2013. After that time, we will only be bringing you our favourite deals from our new partners to give you a variety of deals and some of the best value around.”

The site was co-founded by Dean McEvoy and Justus Hammer. Yahoo!7 paid its $40m up-front rather than basing the deal on later performance.

Late last year McEvoy spent a month with his partner working for the organisation Long Way Home helping build a village school in Guatemala.

Mumbrella’s video interview with the deal-makers two years ago:

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