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Priceline, founded in 1997, was pioneering for the system Name Your Own Price, where people can bid for flight tickets, hotels, and rental cars based on the price they are willing to pay. In such a way, it has changed the way that customers booked travel.

However, Priceline killed its original product Name Your Own Price for flight on 1 September this year, since the industry dynamics have changed. More customers prefer to use mobile devices than desktop or laptop, which makes the bidding process too cumbersome. Just as Lemarchand-Wood said, it was a result of “a dramatic evolution in both technology and customer behaviour when it comes to booking travel.” Priceline moves to Express Deals for flight, which helps customers to book online much faster and easier since the bidding process is removed. Through this new model, Priceline offer travel products at discounts of 30% – 40% with semi-opaque flight information, such as people can only know the name of airline, the time of the flight, and the number of stops after their purchase.

Priceline still offer Name Your Own Price bidding for hotels and rental cars, but it seems that they will also eliminate Name Your Own Price for these two sectors.

The performance of Name Your Price is decreasing over the past few years, according to Priceline Group’s Financial Report. At the meanwhile, Booking.com is growing very fast. In addition, it will decrease customer experience if there’s no heavy discount when a customer enters a Name Your Own Price bid. Moreover, if customers always bid too low and suppliers are not willing to offer extra discounts anymore, they are not able to make a deal, which will also decrease customer experience. Furthermore, booking a Name Your Own Price deal might put the customer at the lowest priority when something bad happens, according to the customer complaints and reviews online.

All above, these facts are showing that Name Your Own Price system will not be the core of Priceline in the future. Do you think Priceline will eventually end Name Your Own Price for hotels and rental cars?

 

References:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/columnist/hobica/2016/09/13/priceline-name-your-own-price-airfare/90271618/

http://www.travelweekly.com/Travel-News/Travel-Technology/Name-Your-Own-Price-Game-over-for-former-game-changer

https://skift.com/2016/09/02/priceline-kills-name-your-own-price-for-flights/

http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/PCLN/2944439744x0xS1075531-16-109/1075531/filing.pdf

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/travel/priceline.html

 

 

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Are you still in a tough spot if you leave your wallet at home? You should take a look at the daily life in China. Companies for example Alibaba are building an ecosystem around mobile payment, a huge number of businesses in China accept mobile payment and people prefer to pay by phone for everything! Scanning a QR code and inputting a password is everything people need to do for a purchase, and the transaction just takes a few seconds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQnOFT5xvnM

Alipay was launched in 2004 as the Chinese equivalent of PayPal, but it has grown to a one-stop portal for payment solutions. Alipay is the leader in the mobile payment market, handling around 63.41% of all transactions in Q1 this year. However, WeChat, a social networking group with 762 million monthly active users in May 2016, offers more services than Alipay through WeChat groups (community building platform), which has become a big threat to Alipay.

After having failed to encourage users to build a social network outside of WeChat, Alipay turns to strangers. On April Fool’s Day of 2015, Alipay released a video (see below if you’re interested but only in Chinese) and “launched” Alipay Everywhere. Alipay believe that building the financial networks between people will be the future, as the development of Internet finance industry. Recently, it has confirmed that Alipay is going to launch Alipay Everywheree in a few weeks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0TUeyYsb1k

According to the video, you can get whatever they need within your budgets through Alipay Everywhere, such as need cash now and ask others for help to fix your laptop. Based on your request Alipay will analyse nearby users’ data (for instance consumption information and location information) to help you out. You will be given a list of respectable users and you can choose one to share your locations until the transaction is complete. It means everybody could be an “ATM” that can not only withdraw money but also offer any help to others. Alipay Everywhere will help to make connections between strangers and build communities. Moreover, users will be able to see rich people nearby who have large sum consumption record, and interact with them!

Do you think this Alipay Everywhere will help Alipay build a successful social network among strangers and make daily life easier and more convenient?

 

References:

http://ecommerceiq.asia/wechat-pay-launches-no-cash-day-china/https://www.techinasia.com/talk/online-payment-provider-alipay-chinese-equivalent-paypalhttp://expandedramblings.com/index.php/wechat-statistics/http://www.fintechasia.net/alipay-vs-wechat-war-of-chinese-payments/http://www.timeoutshanghai.com/features/Blog-Shanghai_news/26270/This-years-top-China-April-Fools-pranks.html