The bus reservation sites in India differ from each other in two ways - one the features and facilities that they provide over internet, second the business model. Here is a list of business models which I could see in practice across different online bus reservation sites:1. Broker/Commission based revenue model: The online bus reservation sites make money by charging commissions on bus bookings from various registered partner bus operators.
2. Revenue from value added services: These sites charge small amount of money from consumers for value added services like home delivery of tickets.
3. Revenue from advertisements: Some of the web sites offer on site advertisements which are used to generate revenue.
4. Revenue from Franchisee: Some sites also offer franchisees for providing online reservation services. The franchisees are offered at a fee with additional income on shares on commissions.
5. Revenue from other travel ancillaries: Some sites have tied up with Taxi operators, Rail (IRCTC) as well as hotels and provide online booking facilities to availing these services. These partners are being charged a commission for every closed deal through their web sites.
This is a very useful post on business models in the online bus ticketing business. One other key differentiator is the availability of real time seat inventory versus quotas. The customer benfit of real time availability is that every seat in bus is available online, and not just the quota allocated for online sale. Currently, other than the bus operator's own websites, I see it only on Ticketvala.com.
ReplyDeleteThanks nuleaf! You have highlighted a very important benefit and my hope is that this and many such value adds will slowly make way once industry starts consolidation. As more and more players will start chipping into this space, it will push the travel operators to get disciplined and more organized adhering to certain norms which intermediaries like ticketvala.com, redbus.in etc will define. It will be interesting to watch this space for next couple of years.
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