Yahoo!Xtra and Hubsta announce new shopping channel in New Zealand

Yahoo!Xtra and Hubsta have announced a partnership to create a new shopping channel which will be integrated into the Yahoo!Xtra portal.

Yahoo!Xtra CEO, Kevin Bowler, says that now is a perfect time to introduce a quality online shopping experience to the Yahoo!Xtra audience.

"New Zealanders are ready and waiting to embrace online shopping more fully, but right now no-one in New Zealand is providing a satisfying online shopping experience. We intend to change that. We've partnered with Hubsta because it offers an unparalleled number of brands and products, including numerous brands not available online before – and great price advantages for consumers."

Chintaka Ranatunga, Hubsta's COO, says Hubsta focuses on bringing together three key elements of online shopping: price, selection and convenience.

"We're committed to providing New Zealanders with an online shopping experience of international standard, and partnering with Yahoo!Xtra will enable us to do just that. Yahoo!Xtra is New Zealand’s biggest portal with over 2.5 million unique New Zealand users per month, and has been growing its local audience by more than 20% year-on-year. So we can instantly offer our shopping experience to an extremely wide New Zealand audience."

Hubsta is an operating subsidiary of The Deal. Ranatunga says Hubsta's team has built a powerful back-end system, and put in place agreements with manufacturers and distributors that will enable Hubsta to provide New Zealand consumers with a catalogue of thousands of well-known brands and products.

"We realised from the outset that ensuring a wide product selection and highly competitive pricing was the key to providing a satisfying shopping experience, so we concentrated on getting that done before anything else," he says. "Experience and relationships gained through running The Deal have helped a lot with this."

Site construction is currently underway with a view to having the shopping channel launched in plenty of time for customers to use the site for their 2009 Christmas shopping.

"We'll be launching with a fanfare, and there'll be some fantastic bargains to be had," says Bowler, "so stay tuned for the opening announcements, and this year you can look forward to doing your Xmas shopping from home without battling the crowds."