I am often asked, what are some areas of the eCommerce that are not often used to its fullest. My answer is always the same, group sales! Guests either fill out a form online and wait to get a response or must call in for reservation booking during operating hours only. Here are some areas of group sale that could be immediately added to your ecommerce. By adding these options to your eCommerce, you can save your staff time which allows them to focus in their areas of responsibility. .
- Birthday Party Booking
Adding Birthday Party booking to your eCommerce provides the convenience for parents to book in a 24/7-time frame. You should be making money while you are closed and providing the convenience for parents to book on their time. I know from personal experience that sometimes the only alone time I get as a parent is when my child is sleeping. The Guest adds their contact information, selects their packaging, add-on and process the deposit. The employees only duty would be to follow up for additional upsell and process the final order upon visit. This process creates more time to service more people, reducing labor and ensuring accuracy of data entry.
- Group Tickets
Group tickets should be sold on the eCommerce for larger groups that do not need any type of special negotiated pricing. Limiting the ticket to the max number of tickets that need to be purchase before the item can be sold. If I have a group of 15 or more, I can purchase this item at the discounted price point while being restricted a minimum number of tickets. . These tickets can be scanned at a point of sale for redemption or at an access node by passing guest service to receive their group tickets. You can upsell these groups on meal vouchers, rapid ride passes, souvenir cups or any other add on offer within the purchasing path.
- Special Event Tickets with Capacity
I once attending a facility that had a special event for Christmas. There was a limited amount of seating and specific session times with capacity. It was an experience to eat breakfast with Santa at the aquarium. An experience I knew my young son would love! I went onto their website and found that I could only book a reservation over the phone. There was no deposit and if I had not shown up there would have been a loss in revenue. These special event ticket should be paid for in advance and upsell could be added to the order at the time of purchase. In this case there was no additional add-on offered to me over the phone like photos with Santa, discount aquarium tickets and face painting. Allowing the guest to purchase these items in advance increase precaps onsite, reduce labor cost and guarantees the funds in advance in case they no show. I had to pay for all my add-on onsite separately and had to wait in an additional line to get admission tickets. While my guest experience was not the worse it could have been made better by selling all these things to me in advance.
- Third-party Sales
Certain systems allow you to create a specific hidden site for a third-party reseller with their agreed upon price point. I call these authorized sites. A good example is consignment agreements with HR for discount tickets or season passes for employees. You can easily track the amount of day tickets or season passes sold from these specific groups. These sites can require email and codes to password protect the sites. Allowing them to purchase directly from your facility save time for printing mass amounts of tickets in advance and having to refund them at the end of the season. Authorized Sites are a good way to prevent tickets from being used without purchase as a way of loss prevention. No need to collect fund from them later as the money is collected at purchase.