comScore: LivingSocial desktop traffic plummeted 42% year-on-year in September 2013

When Amazon released its third-quarter earnings report at the end of last month, the company once again disclosed some financial information about LivingSocial, the second largest group buying website in the United States, which has been in trouble. Amazon currently holds about 31% of LivingSocial's shares.

According to the report submitted by Amazon to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, after a modest 6% increase in revenue in the first half of this year, LivingSocial's revenue in the first three quarters of this year fell by less than 1 percentage point year-on-year. However, compared with the loss of $81 million in the first half of the year, LivingSocial's loss in the third quarter narrowed slightly, with a net loss of about $26 million in the quarter.

However, if you check LivingSocial's web traffic information, you will find that the situation is not the case at all. According to data provided by comScore, an Internet traffic monitoring agency, in September this year, LivingSocial's desktop traffic plummeted 42% year-on-year; the number of independent visitors dropped to 4.6 million, far less than the 7.9 million in the same period last year. If LivingSocial's mobile traffic is still growing, the situation may not be so bad. But this is not the case. Data provided by comScore also shows that in September this year, LivingSocial's traffic from smartphones and tablets fell 28% year-on-year; the number of independent visitors dropped from 10.6 million to 7.7 million.

LivingSocial spokeswoman Sara Parker said in a statement that the decline in user numbers and traffic was due to a number of factors, including the hacking of user account information in April this year and the company's reduction of some marketing initiatives. Parker said in a statement, "LivingSocial's traffic has declined over the past year, which is attributed to a series of factors, including account hacking and the reduction of certain user acquisition programs. At the same time, we have made substantial changes to the LivingSocial platform. These changes are more flexible as we work with merchants to increase the inventory available to consumers. We anticipated this decline when we transformed. Through the transformation, we will become a comprehensive market for local and national consumers to buy and share the best products."

Unlike LivingSocial, although Groupon, the largest group buying website in the United States, is also undergoing a similar transformation, it has not brought a major negative impact on the company's traffic. In the third quarter of this year, Groupon's desktop traffic fell by 8 percentage points year-on-year, and the number of independent visitors dropped from 13 million in the same period last year to 12 million; but mobile traffic has increased. Data provided by comScore shows that Groupon's mobile independent visitors in the third quarter increased by 66% year-on-year to 33 million.

Through comScore's data, we can find that the problems currently faced by LivingSocial are not problems that the entire online group buying industry needs to face, but are the company's own problems.