5 ms·

How Amazon is making money by giving it away

21 points by cwan 16y ago

mise 16y ago
tl;didn't watch answer?
xutopia 16y ago
For some reason I can't play that video. Maybe it's because I'm in Canada. Anyone have the tldw for the video?
- mdwrigh2 16y ago
  I doubt it's because you're in Canada. Doesn't work for me either, and I'm in the USA, but also running Linux, which Flash doesn't get along with. Granted, I am Canadian, so maybe it's just prejudiced against Canadians in general, not where you live... :-)
  - artmageddon 16y ago
    I doubt it's because you're Canadian ;) Running Windows and Firefox (which Flash normally gets along with) but it's not working for me either.
- jessriedel 16y ago
  Mac, Firefox, US: not working.
- idm 16y ago
  It's geo-ip restrictions. I'm also in Canada. Works through a US-based VPN, but it's just not worth it, in this case...
danteembermage 16y ago
I can't watch the video (Chrome, US, Windows), but it's likely the change bank commercial. http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/first-citywide-change-bank/229045/ http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/first-citywide-...
jonknee 16y ago
In case you can't play or don't want to watch the video (an SNL commercial parody), here's the reveal: "How do you make money doing this? The answer is simple. Volume."
MJR 16y ago
The author didn't read the fine print on the deal - *Amazon.com is not a sponsor of this promotion. LivingSocial is making the grab for customers and if Amazon isn't a sponsor of the promotion then they certainly aren't losing more than 6 million dollars as the author claims.
plusbryan 16y ago
This article misses the point entirely. LivingSocial just acquired a shit-ton of users for $10 each. Period. That's an extremely low acquisition cost for a lifetime user value of $50 or more. They now have more than a million credit cards and email addresses that they didn't have before. http://www.lifeinbeta.org/2011/01/why-living-social-can-sell-20-of-amazon-gift-cards-for-10-or-the-economics-of-setting-fire-to-money-as-a-user-acquisition-strategy/ http://www.lifeinbeta.org/2011/01/why-living-social-can-sell...
- ianferrel 16y ago
  Did they, though? What's the retention going to be on those users? I signed up yesterday to get the giftcard, and my experience was pretty bad: I followed a link a friend gave me, and it asked me for some info, then took me to a landing page with my city listed explaining how LivingSocial works. It had a link for "Today's deal", but clicking on that link just took me back to the same "how LivingSocial works" page. Finally I clicked on the referral link I had again, and it took me to the Washington, DC page, which had the Amazon gift card. I bought it. This morning, I received an email from LivingSocial for the current Washington, DC deal, which is some local pizza place. I unsubscribed. Looks like they didn't test well enough to make things actually work for the huge influx of users. Furthermore, I'm not at all convinced that I'm missing anything. Obviously, the really good deals will be shared on Hacker News and other networks I already pay attention to, so why stay subscribed to a daily email?
  - 3pt14159 16y ago
    I had the exact, same experience. To a "T".
  - jonknee 16y ago
    FWIW, the deals are primarily local (Amazon is an exception), so the really good ones [for you] won't be shared here.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

21 points by cwan 16y ago

mise 16y ago

tl;didn't watch answer?

xutopia 16y ago

For some reason I can't play that video. Maybe it's because I'm in Canada. Anyone have the tldw for the video?

mdwrigh2 16y ago
I doubt it's because you're in Canada. Doesn't work for me either, and I'm in the USA, but also running Linux, which Flash doesn't get along with. Granted, I am Canadian, so maybe it's just prejudiced against Canadians in general, not where you live... :-)
- artmageddon 16y ago
  I doubt it's because you're Canadian ;) Running Windows and Firefox (which Flash normally gets along with) but it's not working for me either.
jessriedel 16y ago
Mac, Firefox, US: not working.
idm 16y ago
It's geo-ip restrictions. I'm also in Canada. Works through a US-based VPN, but it's just not worth it, in this case...

danteembermage 16y ago

I can't watch the video (Chrome, US, Windows), but it's likely the change bank commercial. http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/first-citywide-change-bank/229045/ http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/first-citywide-...

jonknee 16y ago

In case you can't play or don't want to watch the video (an SNL commercial parody), here's the reveal: "How do you make money doing this? The answer is simple. Volume."

MJR 16y ago

The author didn't read the fine print on the deal - *Amazon.com is not a sponsor of this promotion. LivingSocial is making the grab for customers and if Amazon isn't a sponsor of the promotion then they certainly aren't losing more than 6 million dollars as the author claims.

plusbryan 16y ago

This article misses the point entirely. LivingSocial just acquired a shit-ton of users for $10 each. Period. That's an extremely low acquisition cost for a lifetime user value of $50 or more. They now have more than a million credit cards and email addresses that they didn't have before. http://www.lifeinbeta.org/2011/01/why-living-social-can-sell-20-of-amazon-gift-cards-for-10-or-the-economics-of-setting-fire-to-money-as-a-user-acquisition-strategy/ http://www.lifeinbeta.org/2011/01/why-living-social-can-sell...

ianferrel 16y ago
Did they, though? What's the retention going to be on those users? I signed up yesterday to get the giftcard, and my experience was pretty bad: I followed a link a friend gave me, and it asked me for some info, then took me to a landing page with my city listed explaining how LivingSocial works. It had a link for "Today's deal", but clicking on that link just took me back to the same "how LivingSocial works" page. Finally I clicked on the referral link I had again, and it took me to the Washington, DC page, which had the Amazon gift card. I bought it. This morning, I received an email from LivingSocial for the current Washington, DC deal, which is some local pizza place. I unsubscribed. Looks like they didn't test well enough to make things actually work for the huge influx of users. Furthermore, I'm not at all convinced that I'm missing anything. Obviously, the really good deals will be shared on Hacker News and other networks I already pay attention to, so why stay subscribed to a daily email?
- 3pt14159 16y ago
  I had the exact, same experience. To a "T".
- jonknee 16y ago
  FWIW, the deals are primarily local (Amazon is an exception), so the really good ones [for you] won't be shared here.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]