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LivingSocial's Final Tally: 1.4M Amazon Vouchers Sold

 & Sara Yin Junior software analyst

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The official tally for the biggest online coupon deal on record, LivingSocial's $20 Amazon voucher for $10 from yesterday, is jawdropping: 1,378,938 vouchers sold.

That's equivalent to 80 vouchers per second, 100,000 per hour, and $13 million in revenue.

It also beats Groupon's tremendous Gap offer last year, which sold 440,000 units and generated $11 million in revenue.

Maire Griffin, director of communications at LivingSocial, said, "It was an incredibly successful deal. We knew it was going to be a really popular deal, and it did not disappoint."

Griffin wouldn't go into specifics, but the New York Times speculates that Living Social might have taken a loss:

"Typically, retailers sell the coupons directly to consumers for the discounted price, and LivingSocial takes a cut, generally 30 percent. But for this deal, LivingSocial bought the gift cards from Amazon and is selling them itself," the Times wrote. "If LivingSocial paid Amazon $20, then LivingSocial is absorbing the losses. If it paid Amazon less, then Amazon is losing money."

Either way, the two companies will sink or swim together. Last December Amazon invested $175 million in LivingSocial.

Now if you bought the deal, you may be experiencing some activation delays. Throughout the day LivingSocial's Twitter account has been apologizing to users for delayed availability of the Amazon voucher. Usually, purchased vouchers are made available within 24 hours.

About Our Expert

Sara Yin

Sara Yin

Junior software analyst

Sara Yin is a junior analyst in the Software, Internet, and Networking group at PCmag.com, pouring most of her energy into app testing and security matters at Security Watch with Neil Rubenking. She lies awake at night pondering the state of mobile security (half-true). Prior to joining PCMag.com, Sara spent five years reporting for publications in New York City (Huffington Post), Hong Kong (South China Morning Post), and Singapore (Campaign Asia, Men's Health). Follow her on Twitter at @SecurityWatch and @sarapyin, or contact her the old school way: email. That's sara_yin AT pcmag.com.

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