LivingSocial Knocks 50 Percent Off Whole Foods Gift Cards

LivingSocial is partnering with Whole Foods, the grocery store known for high-end organic foods that can set you back your whole paycheck.

For today only, the runner-up in the daily deals race is offering $10 for $20 to spend on groceries.

The Washington, D.C.-based company, which is funded partly by Amazon, said it is capping sales at one million vouchers, which will be redeemable for gift cards.

It is the first time LivingSocial has offered a deal from a nationwide grocery store, although national deals have become fairly commonplace, and have been used to get new customers to sign up for the daily emails.

Earlier this year, LivingSocial sold 1.3 million $10 vouchers for $20 gift cards to Amazon.com.

Deals of this magnitude are often viewed as a way to acquire new customers, and are not always structured like typical deals, where LivingSocial gets 50 percent of the revenue.

In Groupon’s IPO filing, it disclosed that its overall gross margins were 41.9 percent at the end of the first quarter, dropping from 45.2 percent in the year-ago period, and that the decrease was primarily due to national deals in North America, which resulted in lower margins for the purpose of acquiring new subscribers and establishing its brand.

Latest Video

View all videos »

Search »

Nobody was excited about paying top dollar for a movie about WikiLeaks. A film about the origins of Pets.com would have done better.

— Gitesh Pandya of BoxOfficeGuru.com comments on the dreadful opening weekend box office numbers for “The Fifth Estate.”