LivingSocial’s Surprising Source of Double-Digit Growth. Last Thursday, Amazon’s quarterly filing revealed that LivingSocial grew 170% over the first quarter in 2011. Annual growth for the #2 player is not surprising given industry’s rapid expansion last year – the bigger question is the company’s recent performance as investors have begun to question the sustainability of the overall industry. New data from our March 2012 Industry Report shows LivingSocial’s North American gross billings are accelerating – up 15% in Q1 2012 from Q4 2011, after an increase of only 6% the previous quarter. This trend is even more apparent when taking a closer look over the last six months. Excluding January, when the overall industry experienced a sizeable seasonality dip, LivingSocial’s rate of growth had steadily climbed to 21% in February and then held relatively steady at 17% in March. LivingSocial Escapes leads performance Escapes grew 31% in Q1 2012 to $38 million in gross billings from $29 million in gross billings in Q4 2011.
Potential of new products. LivingSocial Evasion se lance dans la production avec des réceptifs étrangers. Tatiana Jama (à gauche), CEO et Lara Rouyres (à droite), Présidente de Living Social France - Photo DR TourMaG.com – Quels types d'offres votre nouveau Corner « Evasion » va-t-il proposer ? Lara Rouyres : "La spécialité de LivingSocial est la vente d'offres de proximité. Nous avons donc souhaité garder cette dynamique avec notre nouveau Corner « Evasion ». Il propose 3 types d'offres différents.
Le premier est composé de week-ends ou de courts séjours à proximité des villes - en France ou à l'étranger - pour lesquelles nous proposons déjà des offres. Ce sont des produits principalement destinés à une clientèle de citadins qui cherchent à se changer les idées sans trop s'éloigner de leur lieu de résidence et sans trop dépenser d'argent dans leurs déplacements. "Enrichir, petit à petit notre gamme d'offres de séjours et de voyages" TM.com – Vous êtes donc immatriculé au Registre des opérateurs de voyages et de séjours d'Atout France ? LivingSocial s'engage auprès de ses clients. LivingSocial Finds That Full-Price Delivery Works Better on Mobile - Tricia Duryee - Commerce.
LivingSocial is killing off its last-minute offers for restaurants and spas in favor of a new full-price service it calls Takeout & Delivery. “This is the bigger opportunity we see under real-time commerce, based on the adoption we’ve seen with our members and the feedback from the restaurants,” said Greg Mazanec, LivingSocial’s general manager for Takeout & Delivery. The move is a big step away from the company’s roots of offering large discounts to draw patrons into a store or restaurant. But the step also raises the broader question of whether mobile commerce — as we’ve envisioned it for years — will ever take off. For the past decade, mobile executives and others have promised that, someday, consumers will be alerted of nearby deals or specials on their phone as they walk by a coffee shop or a restaurant. Groupon, which launched a competing product called Groupon Now soon after LivingSocial Instant, continues to offer these real-time deals. An Open Letter to LivingSocial: Learn from Groupon's International Mistakes.
Another day, another unfortunate piece of news out of Groupon’s international operations. Today it’s that SoSata, Groupon’s Indian site, got hacked. In a letter to users, Groupon encouraged them to change user names and passwords and assured them no financial information was compromised because none is stored on the site. Compared to the flood of angry headlines about Groupon of late, this is nothing. But the minor blight comes on the same day that the number two daily deals site in the US, LivingSocial, is also getting more serious about international expansion. Assuming LivingSocial has been watching Groupon carefully, it may be able to avoid making the same costly international Groupon made gobbling up sites in far flung parts of the world.
But how can LivingSocial beat a better-funded competitor with more name recognition who has a 22-country head start on them? 1. Groupon didn’t make the local autonomy mistake with its International operations. 2. 3. 4. 5. LivingSocial to launch its first credit card. LivingSocial Reaches the 5000 Employee Mark. Show me the jobs I love reports like this; fresh and inspirational. Many of you who follow my posts know that I not only do I follow the daily deal industry; I am also a huge fan when it comes to job creation.
Sources show that Groupon employs just over 10,000 workers. During the ’60 Minutes’ interview that number was re-iterated along with the fact that the company adds about 150 people a week. It is interesting that 70% of those employed are overseas. Yesterday, during a recent chat between Erick Shonfeld of TechCrunch and Tim O’Shaughnessy, CEO of LivingSocial it was mentioned that “the company is now at 5,000 employees worldwide, with “just under half” in the U.S.” The ongoing debate of growth and or sustainability The recent Daily Deal Media study estimated that globally, over 1340 daily dealers closed their virtual doors in the last 6 months alone. ”A lot of people started to scale and started to realize they didn’t have all the pieces needed to make it work,” says O’Shaughnessy.