|
Barcodeticket was designed with the mission to provide an efficient
and affordable ticketing system to the sellers so that they can
concentrate on building their events. However, the question remains
whether it is economical to purchase this software. To begin, lets
look at the cost involved here and assuming a typical seller having
6 events to hold over a year and each event taking up to 1000 tickets.
We will use the middlemen model to provide comparison. There is
no off the shelf web based ticketing system currently available
comparable to barcodeticket cost wise. Middlemen model is generally
a portal where the ticket seller can go to the portal and input
their details to set up an account. They are typically NOT FREE
and have some cost involved such as credit card cost in additional
to their own cost. Credit card cost is a fixed cost and varies depending
on your own provider but typically at 3% plus 60 cents per transaction.
We assume that the portal provider here will add another 35 cents
for each ticket processed electronically. If we use the above numbers,
and assuming that each time the seller manages to sell only 500
tickets, then a total of $1,050 a year will be payable to the portal.
The current barcodeticket with credit card verification cost only
$450 which means you will need to sell 1300 (approx) to break-even
with the above cost. At this time, these providers do not charge
anything to your clients but this may change in the future. I am
not sure your clients may be happy to pay for such service. However
ticketing agents have been charging your clients a fee for years
but why let others make the money when you can either earn this
yourself or pass it back to your clients.
Secondly, are there hidden costs which have not been taken into
account by barcodeticket such as the cost of rental of a server
to host the software, cost of internet connections, cost of a barcode
reader etc ? Yes, you do have a point here as barcodeticket need
to be installed on a secured server such as with SSL which is not
the same as installing on those 'Free' servers provided by geocities
and so on. Having SSL means credit card data are transmitted securely
to your server from your client's browser and a "lock"
icon is shown in the client's browser. Typically, if you are running
a business, you should already have a website somewhere other than
those "free" ones. If you do not have one, get one. If
anything, it will improve your company's image. You do not need
a fancy website, a simple one will do. See my unifriends.com which
was completed within 1 afternoon with its database backend, not
just html. The min cost for a shared server ? Somewhere around $
100 a year to have a 50 MB space on a server which is looked after
by very talented people. If you want to maintain your own server
and connection, it will cost you around $ 1300 a month, depending
on your requirements. So this "hidden" cost will bring
your cost up to $ 800 including a barcode reader and for argument
sake, lets round it to $ 1000 all in to have your own ticketing
system up and running which is still cheaper than the above.
Thirdly, I can't emphasis enough that when you are selling things
or events on line, you need to impress your clients. Having your
website is a start. Having your event hosted in someone's else portal,
well ? I mean it is acceptable, if your event is a small event,
costing say $10 a ticket but if you are doing expensive events,
say $ 50 a ticket or $ 100 a ticket then your clients may think
twice trusting a portal's services. Remember, the way this works
is that the portal takes the money first, put it in a trust account,
deduct all the expenses before sending you a cheque at the end of
say 4 weeks or something. They do this, in case your clients decide
to pull out or in the event of any credit card dispute.This is a
requirement by the major credit card companies. Using your own account
means you take all the risk as well as all the rewards.
It is important to do your own research on the particular portal
too. There are not many portals that provide the full service, many
serves as 'directory' rather than a full e-commerce suite.
Fourthly, Privacy is already a critical issue and its difficult
to quantify the cost here. However, as for benefit, having your
clients' detail securely in a database that is controlled by you
is better than having the same data in someone's else database.
I am sure you do not want your clients to come back one day saying
that someone (such as your portal) is sending them unsolicited emails.
You should also check whether your privacy requirements are compatible
to these portals. The fastest way to lost a customer is to do something
when you explicitly said you will not do.
We envisage barcodeticket to be a more affordable alternative to
technology such as a smart card. In a smart card, one can store
a lot of information about the user but its expensive to issue and
permanent. In barcodeticket, we can only store the identifying code
(ie the visible barcode) on the ticket and the rest of the user's
data is stored in a database with a password to access it. However
with 2 dimension barcode technology, we may be able to store more
data. Moreover in our privacy management module, we provide your
users with access to this database so they can checkup on their
information on the web. In a smartcard, your user will require a
smart card reader (US 30) and some software to secure a link to
your system. Typically, once the smart card data is burn on the
chip it is not rewritable although newer smartcard allow for this
at a cost. We believe that newer technology embedded in mobile phones
will eventually replace the smartcard and we are already building
technology to move to digital tickets which are stored in mobile
devices.
Case 1: Airline Ticket
We believe this is a more affordable alternative to using smart
card technology and in the airline industry, the client can simply
buy a ticket online and have the ticket verified at the airport
in exchange for a real boarding pass. In this way both system can
still work together until final integration. If anything, its better
than a confirmation code or number.
Case 2: As a ticketing terminal
Barcodeticket can be installed in a local LAN environment at convenient
sites where your clients can just walk up to the terminal and purchase
a ticket. A simple dumb terminal here cost only $500 plus barcodeticket
$450 at your server. If you have 10 of such terminal at your premises,
you may even consider reducing 2 of your ticket selling staff.
Case 3: Picking up of parcel or laundry etc
Barcodeticket can be designed so that organisations such as a post
office can sent an email to a client to pick up their parcels at
the post office.
Case 4: Visitor Security
Do you know who walks in and out of your building/office ? Do you
really know your visitors ? Well, this may help. Our system requires
the invitation be sent by you and once accepted by your visitor
and confirmed by you and only then, are they allow in the building.
See Visitorsafe.com for details.
If your situation might warrant the use of barcodeticket but you
are unsure, drop us a line so we can do some CBA for you. Simply
put it, there are many applications that can use barcodeticket which
we have yet to discover.
|
middlemen"