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New site aims to go beyond ticket sales
Customers can order a limo, read a reviewEric Benderoff | Chicago
Tribune |
CHICAGO — The call of "Who needs two?" is familiar to anyone who has
attended a ballgame or a concert. But, increasingly, it is being
replaced by "Can I recommend a nice restaurant to go with those
seats?"
By combining service techniques found at Amazon.com and the
social-networking aspects that made MySpace.com a Web powerhouse,
TicketsNow.com wants to reinvent the secondary ticket market.
An online broker to events ranging from plays to baseball games,
TicketsNow can arrange for a limousine to pick up customers at home
and drop them off at a restaurant well before the curtain rises. Tools
used for customers to share their experiences at an event, including
reviews, blogs and snapshots, now appear on the site.
Reliving the event
"This is an upgrade in service, not simply just a new Web site," said
Kenneth Dotson, chief marketing officer for TicketsNow. "Going to
events is a lot more than buying tickets."
When the event is over, the company wants customers to write a review
or post photos so they can relive it.
"This will be a huge differentiator in the space for them," said Brett
Hurt, chief executive of Bazaar Voice, an Austin, Texas, company that
helps e-commerce firms launch review services.
"It's proven to work. When people write a review, they come back four
times on average to see if it was posted," he said.
The market for tickets is a crowded field that includes scalpers who
hawk their inventory outside a ballpark, mom-and-pop storefronts,
auction-based Web sites and hundreds of online destinations that
specialize in new or resold tickets. On the Web, eBay and Craigslist
are the top sellers of resold tickets, but companies like TicketsNow,
StubHub and RazorGator are gaining legitimacy among consumers as a
safe place to shop.
Estimates are hard to pin down on how big the secondary ticket market
has become, ranging from $2 billion to $10 billion. Sucharita Mulpuru,
an analyst with Forrester Research, said she believes the $2 billion
range is accurate, but she concedes there is a lot of gray area.
Online ticket sales are growing as consumers become more comfortable
shopping online. Mulpuru estimates online ticket sales will grow by 27
percent this year compared to 8 percent growth for all ticket sale
channels.
"The Internet has completely changed this market," she said. "Before,
you had to know someone to get tickets to a big event or buy them from
some shady guy on a street corner."
Great marketing, big inventory
Companies like TicketsNow and StubHub are building their brands, have
great marketing campaigns and have large inventories, she said.
TicketsNow clearly is growing. With a new Web site and strategy to
launch social networking tools, Chief Executive Officer Mike Domek is
considering taking the company public, perhaps by late next year.
This year, the company expects revenues to reach $250 million, up from
$142 million in 2005 and $55 million in 2004.
"There's no reason we can't accomplish" $500 million in 2007 and $1
billion by 2008, said Domek, who started the company in 1992 with two
phone lines and $100.
In May, TicketsNow received an $8 million infusion of venture capital
to help expand the management team, which includes veterans from other
online ventures, such as Orbitz. A mixture of Chicago-area and Silicon
Valley firms participated in the funding.
Within two months, Domek is expected to announce another round of
funding, which could reach $30 million. That money will help pay for
the multimillion-dollar Web site upgrade and other initiatives.
Those include new offerings for corporate customers — need a
hospitality tent for the Masters golf tournament? — and techniques to
personalize the site for everyday users.
The company's new Web site, launched in July, has touches familiar to
Amazon and Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes. The site remembers a user's
preferences, including what was searched for and purchased in the
past.
If a user likes going to the theater, it can recommend coming shows at
preferred venues, for instance. An upgraded calendar listing shows
what events are available for a given day.
The most promising feature, one that quickly is becoming adopted by
other e-commerce sites, is the social aspect.
Creating community
"Community is important," Dotson said, nodding to how social
networking sites, blogs and other Web-based communications are
changing how people interact online.
"Everyone has opinions and we're going to provide an outlet for people
to do this," he said, adding that 15 percent of the people TicketsNow
surveyed before revamping its site said they would want to post a
review.
Hurt, who is not working with TicketsNow, said adding the reviews is a
smart strategy.
"It's a need that has been unfulfilled" at e-commerce sites, he said.
A survey conducted for one Bazaar Voice retail client showed reviews
as the top reason for making a purchase. "It was No. 1 by 200
percent," Hurt said. "That blew me away."
He cited a survey by an independent firm showing 48 percent of
shoppers seek reviews before making a purchase and 63 percent of users
prefer sites with reviews and ratings.
Mulpuru added that it is too early to say if reviews will dramatically
affect sales at e-commerce sites over the long term.
"But it seems very promising," she said. "It engages consumers."
For ticket firms, she said buyers often make decisions by price but
that's not a sustainable model for sellers.
"So if you try new ways and features to connect with customers,
helping them relive the moment, it can set you apart," Mulpuru said.
"It's a really unique approach." |
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Source : http://www.venturacountystar.com/vcs/business/article/0,1375,VCS_128_4966964,00.html |
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