Daily deal company LivingSocial will launch its first credit card in the coming months, said Brendan Lewis, director of corporate communications at LivingSocial. The card will offer loyalty benefits to users and no annual fee.
Though LivingSocial did not provide many details on what the card’s benefits would include, an initial promotion provides cardholders to those who make 10 purchases per month with 10 “Deal Bucks” deposited into their LivingSocial account. These can then be used toward any purchase for daily deals and travel offers.
The card will be offered through Chase, co-branded with Visa. It will be offered to all U.S. LivingSocial subscribers.
“It gives members another innovative tool that LivingSocial can help to give them additional value, even outside of the environment of purchasing on livingsocial.com,” Lewis said. “As we formalize all the particulars of the card there will obviously be other incentives for our members to use the card.”
He added that it is also seen as a way to help merchants, driving additional customers to their stores even when a LivingSocial deal is not being offered, though he said that adding deals for card users to patronize specific merchants is, “something we’re working on but don’t have any details on it just yet.”
The company also sees it as a benefit to small and medium-sized local businesses that would not otherwise be able to offer their own credit card or loyalty program.
The credit card may provide a tool for deepening and diversifying LivingSocial’s offerings, at a time when daily deal brands have been seeking ways to keep up their early momentum. Last September, Groupon introduced a loyalty program that allowed merchants to deliver follow-up offers to customers.
Lewis said LivingSocial is still formulating marketing plans for the new card but that, “it will be a mutual thing that both Chase and LivingSocial work on.”
