{"id":41840,"date":"2023-10-20T15:16:52","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:16:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/foursquare-deal-with-livingsocial-set-to-boost-retailers-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:16:52","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:16:52","slug":"foursquare-deal-with-livingsocial-set-to-boost-retailers-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/foursquare-deal-with-livingsocial-set-to-boost-retailers-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Foursquare deal with LivingSocial set to boost retailers – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"

Location-based social networking site Foursquare has partnered with American Express to distribute coupons on behalf of five major group-buying companies, including LivingSocial. <\/span><\/p>\n

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Foursquare, founded in 2009 by Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai, is a location-based social networking site based on software for mobile devices.<\/p>\n

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The service allows users with GPS-enabled devices to announce their location to friends by \u201cchecking in\u201d at venues.<\/p>\n

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Crowley told the Wall Street Journal<\/i> the company has partnered with LivingSocial, Gilt Groupe\u2019s Gilt City, zozi, BuyWithMe and AT&T Interactive to distribute discount coupons to users in return for checking in at certain venues.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe are trying to see if our targeting works and how users will react. The deals haven\u2019t been heavily targeted with some of these providers,\u201d Crowley said.<\/p>\n

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The company confirmed the move via a post on its official blog, announcing a partnership with American Express to redeem coupons via a \u201cload to card\u201d function that has been added to the app.<\/p>\n

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The company will take a commission for every coupon redeemed.<\/p>\n

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Deals will be available via Foursquare\u2019s BlackBerry, Android and iOS apps in the US, the UK, Canada, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.<\/p>\n

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Foursquare has indicated that other deals and countries will soon be added to the mix and it is believed that the New York-based start-up is negotiating a deal with Groupon.<\/p>\n

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The coupons will be served to Foursquare\u2019s 10 million registered monthly users based on their previous check-ins via Foursquare\u2019s updated Explore tab.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe now run all specials through our personalised Explore tab. As a result you only see specials that are right for you,\u201d the company said.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIf you\u2019re walking around and see a special you like, a couple of taps in your app and you\u2019ll be able to buy it, all without leaving Foursquare. And if you find a good special while browsing on Foursquare.com you can buy it there too.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Jake Maas, senior vice president of business development at LivingSocial, said the Foursquare deal adds another distribution channel to his company, which already markets deals via websites and bloggers.<\/p>\n

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The partnership is expected to benefit Australian merchants who advertise deals through local shopping site Jump On It given LivingSocial\u2019s investment in the company.<\/p>\n

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Last year LivingSocial announced it had invested nearly $5 million for a controlling majority stake in Jump On It.<\/p>\n

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Colin Fabig, founder of Jump On It and chief executive of LivingSocial for Australia and New Zealand, says the deal between LivingSocial and Foursquare will directly benefit local merchants.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWorking with Foursquare is another innovative way LivingSocial is bringing our merchants\u2019 handpicked experiences to high-value consumers,\u201d Fabig says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cMerchants will enjoy even greater exposure of the deals they offer to LivingSocial members and the deals offered through Foursquare will encourage repeat visitation to our merchants.\u201d<\/p>\n

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By partnering with deal providers Foursquare, which employs 75 people, avoids much of the expense of building the sales force needed to cut deals with local merchants.<\/p>\n

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Foursquare\u2019s deals program hasn\u2019t been very lucrative so far. It has signed up 500,000 merchants but doesn\u2019t receive a cut of the deals it sells.<\/p>\n

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The company faces growing competition from heavyweights Google and Facebook in addition to a wave of innovative start-ups. Its investors are betting it will eventually be able to capitalise on its head start in location services.<\/p>\n

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Late in June Foursquare raised $50 million, valuing it at $600 million \u2013 six times its valuation the previous year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Location-based social networking site Foursquare has partnered with American Express to distribute coupons on behalf of five major group-buying companies,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60667,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41840"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}