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Amazon helping LivingSocial close gap on Groupon

Updated

By Ben Parr, Mashable

LivingSocial's traffic skyrocketed by 80% last week with a little help from Amazon, closing the gap between it and group-buying leader Groupon.

Before last week, LivingSocial had one-tenth of the Web traffic of Groupon. Thanks to Google's $6 billion offer and Groupon's subsequent rejection of that offer, the deal-a-day service has been experiencing a new wave of growth. The second-largest competitor in the space, LivingSocial, experienced an uptick in traffic as well, but nothing as dramatic as Groupon's rise.

New data from Hitwise Intelligence show that last week was a major inflection point for LivingSocial, though. It garnered 0.018% of all U.S. visits on the Web, an 80% increase from 0.010%. Groupon, on the other hand, actually dropped by 20% to 0.035% market share of U.S. visits.

Why the sudden spike in traffic? The answer's simple: Amazon. The e-commerce giant made a strategic investment of $175 million in LivingSocial last month to counteract a potential Google-Groupon combination. Last week, LivingSocial offered 50% off of a $20 voucher at Amazon.com, which resulted in more than 1 million Amazon vouchers sold. It was the biggest group-buying deal in history.

With a deal as good as 50% off, it's no wonder traffic skyrocketed so fast. However, we bet that when this week's data come in, LivingSocial's traffic will fall back to Earth. Still, the Amazon deal gave LivingSocial a lot of attention and helped it sign up new customers, which could help accelerate its growth and bring it within striking distance of Groupon.

Both companies are about to get some serious competition, though. Google is building its own group-buying service, Google Offers, and Facebook is testing a group-buying prototype of its own.

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