Groupon’s Black Friday Was Phenomenal, LivingSocial Is Doing OK and Fab Is Booming

Now that we know Andrew Mason will stay on as the company’s CEO, let’s move on to other Groupon news: The daily-deals company reports that its Black Friday was the busiest day on record. According to Groupon, it saw nearly twice the purchase rate of its previous busiest day. Transactions via mobile surged 140 percent from last year, driving more than 40 percent of all transactions and more than half of Groupon Goods transactions. Groupon says Groupon Goods marked its biggest four-day weekend since its inception. This is positive news for the company, which has gotten some heat for its shift toward emphasizing its sale of physical goods, which have thinner margins than its bread-and-butter local deals. Groupon is also in the midst of its third annual Grouponicous, a season of promotion for the holidays. This year the company has rolled out a holiday toy catalog, along with free shipping and returns. According to Yipit, LivingSocial’s revenues in North America increased 30 percent for the week following Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, Fab reports that it sold more than $6.5 million of products this past week, up significantly from $1.7 million sold in the same period last year. (AllThingsD, PYMNTS.com, TechCrunch)