Former DSGi chief John Clare and advertising guru Lord Saatchi have sold a substantial stake in their social shopping site Myfaveshop.com to take the business forward.

The undisclosed stake has been sold to online retail directory Edirectory and its chief executive Dominic Allonby will run the newly enlarged operation. Present Myfaveshop.com chief executive Michael de Kare-Silver will step down but retain a small stake.

The move still leaves Clare and Saatchi with a stake in the business and it will operate as a joint venture. Clare said: “The prospects for the businesses as one partnership are much enlarged. We have developed the front end and with Edirectory having several hundred brands on its site, it gives us an opportunity to get a much bigger customer base very quickly.” Edirectory serves about 1 million unique users a week at present. Clare added the move also gives Edirectory the advantage of a more advanced front end.

The full launch of the site, which is still running just in beta form, is expected at the beginning of next year. Since its test launch earlier this year, Clare said that numbers of users signing up has been in the “thousands” and the new partnership is expected to boost those figures quickly.