SMARTPHONE penetration combined with that “creeping fear of missing a deal” is pushing users to LivingSocial, the daily deals service that’s a lot like Groupon, only marginally less likely to offer you the experience of a keratin blow-dry treatment while renting a hovercraft.

Peter Briffett (pictured), managing director of LivingSocial in the UK and Ireland, says the company’s operations in Ireland, where it employs more than 20 people, are profitable, despite the impact of recession.

Briffett, who was visiting LivingSocial’s offices in Dublin yesterday, believes consumers are in the grip of a “social commerce revolution” and it’s that element of novelty in the offers that makes all this “spaving” (spending money in order to make a perceived saving) so popular.

“We can’t do restaurant deals three days in a row. We have to do something new and exciting.”

In London, LivingSocial has trialled a hyper-local service called Instant that allows people on the move to check the availability of nearby deals on a Google Maps-powered app.

So far, the pleasure of such immediate-offer redemptions is not yet available in Ireland, where LivingSocial launched in October 2010. In Dublin, the company tailors its deals on a simple northside / southside basis. Further localisation is only a matter of time, however.

In the meantime, competitors to the big two players of Groupon and LivingSocial such as Independent News & Media’s GrabOne brand – the third-biggest deals service in Ireland – hope to capture some of the market before it really does take off.

“There’s a very low barrier to entry, but it’s a very hard business to scale,” is Briffett’s view on local rivals.

Globally, LivingSocial, which positions itself as the “premier” discounts service, has something of a headstart, having amassed email sign-ups from 60 million members across “six of the seven continents”, according to its company factsheet. “Unfortunately for penguins, deals on raw krill are still a work in progress.”