Apparently a LivingSocial deal offering a $20 Amazon gift card for $10 is one that’s too good to pass up. The 50% off deal went out to LivingSocial members in 170 markets earlier this morning and has now been purchased more than one million times.
That number may even be doubled by the time the deal closes Thursday morning, should LivingSocial members continue to buy at this rate. At the time of publication, the Amazon vouchers were fast-approaching 1.1 million in total sales.
Amazon, clearly interested in helping the startup it just invested $175 million in, will likely take a big hit as a result of the deal’s popularity. The online marketplace will lose millions of dollars — at least $10 per voucher — when LivingSocial members make good on the offer. The company, however, probably sees the loss as a net gain and a worthwhile marketing cost.
If this sounds a bit like déjà vu, that’s because Groupon ran a similarly hot promotion offering 50% off at the Gap in August of last year. At the time, the deal, which went on to sell 441,000 Groupons, was the largest of its kind. Clearly, that’s no longer the case, and LivingSocial has now proven that its platform can drive deal sales at massive scale.
Update: The finally tally ended up being 1,301,296 Amazon vouchers.
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