Groupon & LivingSocial US daily deal market shows continued negative revenue growth in August. Is the US market saturated?

Daily deal revenue at Groupon and LivingSocial in the United States has dropped 2 consecutive months based upon data collected by CouponHq, a global daily deal data provider.

August data shows Groupon daily deal revenues dropped 4.8% and LivingSocial dropped 1.8%.

It is important to note that Hurricane Irene negatively impacted August numbers throughout the US market for both companies.
 
Number of Groupon daily deal vouchers sold down 14%
Groupon relied on higher priced travel deals to maintain revenue parity. 5 of  Groupon’s top 15 grossing deals in August were a Getaways travel deal.
 
Average price per deal up significantly over last 6 months
Average offered price for deals by Groupon and LivingSocial increased from $41 in March to $57 in August. Average price per sold voucher increased from $21.20 in March to $29.60 in August.

This reflects increasing deal offers & voucher sales in the travel category as  Groupon’s Getaways and LivingSocial’s Escapes & Adventures grow in prominence.
 
Lower LivingSocial deal revenue variability
Large deals anchored Living Social revenues earlier this year resulting in high revenue variability. For example, LivingSocial’s Fandango promotion grossed $9 million and represented almost 20% of March revenue. However, LivingSocial deal revenue variability has now moderated with no deal representing more than 3% of their revenue. 
 
US market maturing, international markets continues strong growth
As both market leaders register month on month declining daily deal revenues in the US, has Groupon & LivingSocial reached the maximum spend of their US customer base? With the end of summer, we will see if growth resumes and September will be a pivotal month for Groupon as it nears its anticipated IPO.

Given stalling revenues in the US, high growth now depends on the fast growing international markets.

CouponHq is a Vancouver, BC startup providing global daily deal statistics. Last month, CouponHq tracked over 150,000 daily deals in 44 countries.  Clients receive real-time updates & daily deal data through a propriety deal dashboard allowing free-form deal search & market-by-market data slices. To find out more, please visit www.couponhq.com/b2b/data. Public reports are on the blog. 

Addendum: CouponHq tracks daily deals and does not track flash sales, Groupon Now or LivingSocial Instant

Contact Information

Janssen Choong

Founder

CouponHq Services Inc

(1) (604) 229-0669

media@couponhq.com