Group buying site Spinzo staffs up for Toronto launch

By Edward Keenan – YongeStreetMedia.ca | link to original article

Saint John, New Brunswick-based group buying website Spinzo is preparing to launch in Toronto. The company is staffing up—hiring sales and marketing staff—in anticipation of bringing its « progressive savings » model to the GTA.

The variation on popular group discount sites adds a « more people equals a better deal » innovation. That means the price of an item falls when more people sign up to buy it. The platform also allows purchasers to bid a price they are willing to pay, committing to buy it only if the price reaches a certain level.

CEO Emmanuel Elmajian says this model attracts a better caliber of business to offer deals.

« If you look at many of the [traditional group buying sites], you see they tend to attract lower-end merchants, » says Elmajian. That's because such sites use deep discounts as the main selling point. « A lot of businesses, restaurants in particular, don't want to do that. » He says they might offer a 20 per cent discount as a base, and then up it to 30 per cent or more if a certain number of people bid. « Then maybe they want to cap the discount at 40 per cent. That's perfectly fine. »

The more-people-equals-lower-prices approach, he says, also « brings viral back into the equation. » Buyers have a strong incentive to publicize the deal.

The company launched in testing phase earlier this year, with more than $500,000 in investment from private and public partners led by Growthworks. Elmajian says the company has a sales person working in Toronto now, and is looking to add another one or two, in addition to hiring a marketing coordinator. Spinzo should be live, offering deals to the general public sometime in the next month and a half.