Living Social Takes On Groupon:

Living Social Vs Groupon Traffic

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Two months ago, LivingSocial, the Chinatown-based group discount coupon site, was hardly a blip on Groupon's radar.Now, after a monster Amazon gift card deal that catapulted the company into the limelight, LivingSocial now sees more than half the visits that the industry leader Groupon does.

Last December Amazon had declared there $175 million investment in LivingSocial, to help the site locate in various other regions. On January 19th it gave away the best deal for Amazon. It had offered half Price deals in Amazon.com and in less that eight hours over 80,000 signed up for Amazon deals.

Recently LivingSocial deals for Amazon.com included the offer of getting a $20 voucher of Amazon in $10. Needless to say, the deal is a great hit and from the profit point of view the site is close to earning $4 million from the deal. This results in a net revenue of $2 million which will then be split between the two. 

When Experian Hitwise, analyzed visitors to the two sites a little under two months ago, Groupon visitors outpaced LivingSocial visitors at a rate of ten-to-one. A new analysis shows that, after the Amazon deal, the company saw a surge in subscribers that's continued to climb 80 percent. Meanwhile Groupon has seen its visitors decline by 20 percent.Hitwise suggests that means that “the race for dominance in the group coupon space is far from over.” Mashable opined that LivingSocial’s traffic is likely to return to Earth this week, although the company likely gained many new members and national attention, good and bad, from the deal.

However although LivingSocial, boosted its traffic by 80 percent selling a $20 Amazon card for $10 last week, but the deal spawned a rash of negative comments on the LivingSocial Facebook page and stories about the deal across the blogs comments.