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LivingSocial Sells 27,000 Meals in Three Hours to Promote Real-Time Offers

April 15, 2011 at 4:14 pm PT

LivingSocial sold 27,000 lunches in three hours today in Washington, D.C., as part of a promotion to highlight its new Instant Deals feature. The service allows people to get special offers immediately from their phone, rather than having to purchase them in advance to redeem later. For a short time today only, midday meals were marked down to $1 at 120 merchants–the next best thing to a free lunch. A spokesperson declined to comment on how much the merchants received for participating. Groupon is experimenting with a similar service called Groupon Now.

Tagged with daily deals, eMoney, Groupon, Groupon Now, Instant Deals, LivingSocial, merchants, newsbyte, Tricia Duryee

comments so far. Add yours.

J Preston

Is 27,000 how many they sold or how many were actually used? I bought one but was unable to use it because the restaurant was overwhelmed and stopped accepting people on their waiting list (at least at that moment). For deals that are only 3 hours long and deals that are for lunch if you can’t get your meal quickly its not a good deal.
http://twitter.com/happycontentme happycontentme

I don’t think businesses can sustain the margin losses with LivingSocial, Groupon, and the like. It’s not necessarily an effective customer acquisition strategy because businesses pick up more unprofitable customers that profitable ones for a quick revenue boost. Offering loyalty rewards directly with customers that frequently purchase at full price is more effective.

In terms of brand, consumers may no longer see your products and services valued at your original prices as they will be trained to hold off on purchases until deals are offered once again. I know that I’ve spent a lot of money purchasing deals that I would not have otherwise, and many of them are I will not buy again unless they come up as a deal again. Example: Fandango movie tickets at $6 is worth buying, otherwise, I like my Netflix.
Anonymous

What a joke. If you give out (almost) free food, people will come. Shades of the first internet bubble! These publicity stunts are not a business model.
Anonymous

A great way to showcase the Instant Deal app from your phone.