Across the ditch, LivingSocial.com has recently sold over 163,000 Pizza Hut Pizzas. The deal was for the "Pizza Mia" which is a regular size pizza that is smaller than a large. For just $2, thousands of Aussies grabbed the deal which exceeded all expectations.
The deal broke records for Australia's largest group buy food deal. In fact, the deal was the largest group buy ever, in any category, proving that daily deals are still alive and kicking. And to put thing into perserpective: Living Social normally sells 180,000 voucher per month. In this case it sold an extra 160,000 in 7 days!
The deal was also a big step for the daily deals industry as it saw a large mainstream business partner with a daily deals site. Traditionally Daily deal sites deal with small local stores, as the larger companies dont' need to discount heavily. The success of the Pizza hut deal could prompt more big name brands to partner with deals sites.
LivingSocial New Zealand and Australia are run by the same CEO, Adam Rigby, so there is a real possibility that the deal might make its way over to New Zealand.
A key part of the success for Pizza hut was that the voucher needed to be used online, meaning that 160,000 people got used to using the Pizza hut website. Half of the battle online, is getting people to your site, and actually going through the order process.
The deal was cheap on price, but also cheap on marketing costs. Mr Anup Jain of Pizza hut's marketing department said that it usually costs between $10 - $15 to get a customers details through traditional media advertising. With the deal capturing customers details for free, and probably breaking even on the $2 pizza cost, it was a low cost way to advertise.
In New Zealand, Pizza Hut sales declining to Dominos. Perhaps a massive deal like this could be just the ticket here in New Zealand.
