The online coupon business in Australia probably really arrived late last year when Jump On It sold out 50 000 coupons for cheap games at Strike Bowling in under a day. Yahoo!7 will be hoping that Australian’s appetite for cheap deals hasn’t diminished, announcing it has acquired group buying site Spreets.

Spreets (spreets.com.au and spreets.co.nz) was the first Group Buying site in Australasia, has been going strong for almost a year, and has picked up 500,000 members along the way.

Yahoo!7 hopes to continue to grow the site and will pair Spreets site with the Yahoo!7 Network and Channel 7 and its subsidiaries.

“After carefully reviewing the market it was clear that Spreets is a market-leader in what is becoming a highly competitive and fast growing market,” said Rohan Lund CEO of Yahoo!7. 

“At its core Spreets is about leveraging insights to deliver the best local deals through an online social experience, and this maps perfectly to the Yahoo!7 Local and Social strategies," he said.

Spreets CEO Dean McEvoy seemed pretty chuffed with being bought out, perhaps because the deal is believed to have been worth around $40 million.

“We’re thrilled with the acquisition by Yahoo!7, as we see the huge potential that one of Australia’s leading online media companies, which has huge momentum in the market, will bring to the Spreets business.”