Purely anecdotal self-examination: I've bought stuff off LivingSocial and it was because they had deals that were really fun (ex. white water rafting.) I got a

Purely anecdotal self-examination: I've bought stuff off LivingSocial and it was because they had deals that were really fun (ex. white water rafting.) I got a number of my friends to also buy so we could all go together. I bought other things from afterwards... particularly if they were fun or social, such as skydiving. In examining my experience, I see a few factors at play: * Sell what people want to buy. * Connecting with an audience that will buy repeatedly. * Incentives to spread the deals. The activity may be social in nature (such as white water rafting) or they might have a financial incentive (get 5 people to buy and yours is free.) I'm not sure if the other knockoff's had these elements but I could see how they helped LivingSocial earn at least $1000 from me and my friends in the last year.