Here’s last week’s fantastic social commerce webinar/podcast on group buy hosted by Opus research/Internet2Go, featuring Yipit co-founder James Moran, Close.ly CEO Perry Evans and Internet2Go Senior Analyst & Program Director Greg Sterling.

Full of intelligent insights, useful stats and market predictions, it’s the best overview of the social commerce group-buy segment we’ve yet to have seen.

Here’s the link to the webinar (requires registration), but screenshots, audio and top takeouts are below.  Enjoy.

Group Buy Power Briefing (Yipit/Close.ly)

Top Takeouts

• 62% of online adults look for coupons for online stores – 12% never make a purchase without checking for an online coupon first
• Searches on Google for “Printable Coupons” increased 67% year on year
• Digital coupon users have average household income of $96K
• Adults with HH income greater than $100K are twice as likely to have redeemed online coupons than lower income households
• Adults with college degrees are 2x more likely to have used online coupons than those who didn’t graduate from high-school
• After search engines, coupon sites are the most popular online shopping tool (before reviews, retailer emails, price comparison sites, shopping portals and social networks)
• There are now 500+ Group Buy couponing sites; Groupon and LivingSocial are the market leaders (Groupon vital statistics: Valuation $1.35m, 2010 revenues (est.) $350-400M, $170M invested, present in 100+ US cities, expansion through Europe underway)
• Publishers/media co’s are now entering the group-buy arena (Washington Post, San Fransisco Chronicle, CBS)
• Group buy sites are a new generation local advertising channel/local direct marketing channel
• Group buy is form of “live social marketing” (daily deals + email marketing + mobile LBS/checking + Search marketing)
• 90% of group-buy coupons get redeemed
• The group-buy categories generating the most revenue are city tours, hair removal and spas
• The future of group buy is 1) “verticalization” – focusing on specific product/demographic categories 2) media (publishing sites)
• 93% of retailers using group buy sites would use them again
• Customer retention is an issue with group-buy sites – 19% conversion from coupons to regular customers – but apps such as Scoutmob are emerging that offer ‘return perks’ deals for returning coupon users to stimulate loyalty