LivingSocial has reportedly seen a huge spike in its traffic, up 80% within the past week. In the group-buying space, Groupon has held the crown with LivingSocial trailing behind. However, the underdog has recently stepped up the competition with a little help from Amazon.
During the past week, there have been some significant changes for each service. Previously, LivingSocial only received one-tenth of the web traffic that Groupon received. However, as LivingSocial saw an 80% increase in traffic, Groupon actually reported a 20% drop.
The sudden spike that LivingSocial received was in large part due to a previous investment Amazon made. After a $175 million investment in LivingSocial last month, gift cards to Amazon.com were offered at 50% off resulting in more than one million vouchers sold, and also the biggest group-buying deal in history.
Although this may have only temporarily increased traffic for LivingSocial, it at least brought on new customers and more attention than the group-buying underdog saw before. While they still fall behind Groupon in this space, they have definitely come within range of steady competition. However, both services may feel some new heat in the future when Google officially launches its own service, Google Offers.
There is still plenty of room in the group-buying space for both LivingSocial and Groupon to mark their territory. As each service continues to extend their deals and build their alliances, it may become a full-on head-to-head battle between the two.
