On Monday we reported that in Australia, LivingSocial had closed down JumpOnIt, the second daily deals site that they owned. This was to reduce competition and grow Living Social in Australia.
So what could this mean for the New Zealand Daily Deals market? Well, the LivingSocial Group in Australia is also responsible for the New Zealand market. While they certainly have their hands full across the ditch, LivingSocial have still been innovating over here with the launch of LivingSocial Escapes in February 2012.
Could we see LivingSocial buy up a local New Zealand site to increase their reach here? LivingSocial were the very first group buying site to start advertising in New Zealand. Mind you, they were very later to actually launch a site, but they advertised heavily in NZ with ads that went to a landing page designed to get people to join their email list. They were advertising at least 6 months before any other site, and before most people even knew what group buying was.
So, with continued advertising since then, Living Social likely have a massive database of customers. Would they even need to buy a local kiwi site? Rumour has it that in 2011 competitor DailyDo.co.nz purchased, Yazoom and Groupy to consolidate sales teams and streamline everything. This was no doubt to provide a strong No2 competitor for GrabOne.
But with GrabOne having something like 65% market share in NZ, the other sites are having a tough job. The remaining 35% is shared between LivingSocial, Groupon, TreatMe and 3 or 4 other group buying sites. That's not much to go around.
LivingSocial are the largest daily deals group in Australia. Could LivingSocial be looking buy up the NZ DailyDo group to gain a larger market share in NZ? Let us know what you think on our Facebook page.
