AHAlife Acquires Bezar

The flash sale model has taken another hit, it seems, with the sale of Bezar to Australian eCommerce outfit AHAlife. The sale follows reports last month that the digital home goods and accessories site was almost out of money.

Bezar was founded last year by Fab Cofounder and flash sale enthusiast Bradford Shellhammer. Bezar launched as another flash sale-based business but, ultimately, changed course midstream to be a more typical eCommerce marketplace when the flash sale concept just didn’t work.

The move to a marketplace made the company a better acquisition fit for AHAlife, which apparently has been eyeing the ailing eCommerce firm for a few months.

Shellhammer noted in an interview that AHAlife CEO Shauna Mei had been eager to combine their efforts.

“When we got to talking this summer, as I had the options of what we wanted to do with Bezar in front of me, she and I kept coming back to the same conversation, that together we’d be a much stronger force than apart,” he told Fast Company.

For the time being, Bezar will remain a standalone marketplace, though, eventually, it may be integrated entirely into AHAlife.

Shellhammer will continue to advise the company but will no longer be involved in day-to-day operations.

“I am going to take an active role in shepherding over our 13,000-plus designers on our platform, as well as our customers and much of my team,” he said. “It’s really an acquisition in the sense that the brand assets will become AHAlife and as well as our relationships with designers, our social media presence and much of the team.”