MovieTell.co.in – Convenience (Hidden) Charges September 24, 2006
Posted by Pawan Agarwal in Consumer Internet India, Product Review, Uncategorized.trackback
In case you are looking for online movie tickets to any of the following cinema halls in India then in highest probability you would be redirected to MovieTell.co.in
- Velocity III – Indore
- SRS – Faridabad
- Wave – Noida
- Wave – Kaushambi
- 24 Karat – Mumbai
- DT Cinemas – City Center
- DT Cinemas – Mega Mall
I decided to dig deeper into movietell.co.in site and tried buying some movie tickets. I was surprised to see that they are charging Rs. 10 per ticket as convenience charge. Which is not shown when you select the ticket (as depcited in the following image)
Only after I made the payment did I realize that I had been charged Extra (Rs. 30 for 3 tickets). When they actually show the breakup.
I don’t think this business model could ever work in India. First off having hidden charges is ridiculous, second Rs. 10 per ticket isn’t justified (when you don’t even deliver). I believed TicketPro guys could think of better revenue models then to charge 5-8% as convenience charge.The user anyways pays 2.5% as transaction charge. So in effect if you are buying online Tickets from MovieTell then you are paying approx. 10% extra.
I need not re-iterate, cool ajax based UI alone won’t take any one far, you have to actually add some value if you expect to be paid extra.
MovieTell.co.in – Convenience (Hidden) Charges « Consumer Internet – India
MovieTell.co.in – Convenience (Hidden) Charges « Consumer Internet – India posted at IndianPad.com
Interesting but impractical idea. If they charge less and make sure they can deliver tickets or get them collected profficiently, it might work.
Humm, in this case one can sue it very easily.
Moreover this is not a stable model. They may require more work on it.
They should clearly mention all the prices and service charges attached.
looks like a very bad business model to me, this type of model has not succeeded anywhere in the world, charging customers when you are in beta, most of the consumer internet companies do not charge the users and we have seen the trend with a lot of them to name a few ebay, rediff, fandango. the list is long. I would encourage movietell people to think of a different revenue model seriously before consumers like me are driven away by these stupid charges.
Actually, if you look at the worldwide revenue model for ticketing, you would find everyone charges a convenience. Fandango and Movietickets charge 1$ each. Ticketmaster charges 15-20% of the ticket value.
Even Railways charges a convenience fee, and they don’t deliver e-tickets as well.
Rakesh
There are two things to it:
1. If you charge a premium, it should be explicitly specified, Indian Railways, or any other such service for that matter specify very explicitly that you are being charged a premium.
2. There could be better revenue models than this. “Allied” businesses would be required to sustain.
Pawan,
I totally agree that they should mention that the service is at a premium. I still feel though a per ticket fee would be required for this business, along with allied revenues.
First thing, their UI is AJAX based, but it’s definitely not the cool one! And this hidden charges are ridiculous. I personally feel, if they are adding value to the user, and they want to attract more ticket buyers, then they should not charge this extra amount. Though its the proven model in USA, in India, I think many people still hesitate to pay extra amount just for the “convenience”!
They definitely need to work hard on business model as well UI!
My $0.02s.
Pretty incomplete thinking behind this portal in my opinion. They seem to be all over the place with their thought process even though they have already launched the site
OMG lolz they charge money per ticket. They should strive for the people to get discounts instead of this.