⭐ Short-term rental: how to boost sales without lowering prices.
Today at 12 p.m. I'm sharing with you 3 tips to boost your sales without having to lower prices.
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Hello and welcome to the J'poster Complet channel, the channel which helps seasonal rental companies, asset managers and professional sub-renters to become serene and ultra-profitable entrepreneurs thanks to revenue management methods.
Today we're talking about a subject that I think is quite interesting. When you say to yourself, “Okay, this isn’t working. The situation is serious, I need to boost my sales,” and the first instinct we can have in these circumstances is to slash prices. Today we are going to talk about all the solutions and ideas that are at your disposal so that you do not have to cut prices, so that in more difficult times, you have several arrows to your bow, and that you know how to react. Especially since at the moment, when I am doing this Live, it is November 9, and there is a period there which is weak for a large majority of cities in France and the Antilles. So in general, it's a pretty weak period ahead, and in these cases, it's interesting to know how to react. So I told myself more than ever that it’s interesting to talk about it today. As you know, I am always happy to see you live on Tuesday at noon and Thursday at noon. So, don't hesitate to say hello when you arrive, it's a real pleasure to meet you. Don't hesitate to ask me your questions, we're together, we talk, and that's what's great. If you don't know or if you just discovered these Tuesday and Thursday Lives, know that you can see and rewatch them from the YouTube channel. So you have to subscribe and click on the bell to be alerted when I go live. From our private Facebook group, which is called Vacation Rental Pricing and Revenue Maximization, you will receive a bonus of the six mistakes not to make when you join this group. So don't hesitate to do it, there's the link just below the video, and then now from Instagram. So our Instagram account is I'm displaying Complete. That's it, don't hesitate to meet me on Tuesday and Thursday at noon.
– Hello, Gregory. Welcome. Gregory, watching from YouTube. “Hi Elise. I hope you're well. I have just sent a new email for availability to exchange if that is possible for you.” Great. Cool. I'll look at that.
- " Thanks in advance ". Great, great.
Alan is here too, from YouTube.
– Hello Alan! He said to me: “Hello, Élise.”
We have someone whose name I don't know watching us from Facebook.
– “Hello, Élise, thank you for your live video”. Please.
We also have people who joined us from Instagram.
– Welcome everyone, welcome friends.
– We have Little vegetable garden, I imagine that’s not your first name, which says to me: “hello”. Welcome to you.
– Marie Claire: “Hello, Élise, hello from the Lot. » Top. Welcome.
So we're going to talk about... can you tell me if you've ever had this situation of saying to yourself: "It smells a little like pine, it smells a little scorched, sales aren't there." YOU. What do I do? Should I lower the prices? » Tell me in the comments if this has ever happened to you. I imagine, I don't want to predict what you are going to tell me, but that you will perhaps say to me: "Well yes, not only did that happen to me, but what's more, I lowered the prices, and I regretted it, because afterwards, I saw that I made sales, and I said to myself: shouldn't I have kept my prices? »
Let's talk about this situation. Already, the first question we can ask ourselves is why it might be interesting to say to ourselves: “I don’t have any good trends currently, but I still want to maintain my prices . » The first reason can be because you have studied the competitive position of your apartment: its price, and it is well positioned in the market range. You are well positioned in relation to what you want to do. Either you want to be at the top of the market range, or in the average, or at the bottom. But in any case, currently, you are well positioned. So you say to yourself: “There’s no point in selling lower. » For example: “I have the most high-end apartment in my city in terms of two-bedroom apartments. I'm in the high range, I don't want to go and cut my prices. » That's the first reason.
The second reason can also be because you have significant expenses, and you say to yourself: “Be careful, if I drop even more, I also take the risk of eating into my profitability, of reducing everything the interest in bringing a traveler, that is to say the money gain that I will have in the end. »And so, in these circumstances, you prefer not to lower prices, and to seek sales without having to cut prices.
A little digression on that anyway. I don't want to make a topic within a topic, but a quick aside. Sometimes, it's better to agree to lower prices a little, because that at least allows you to cover our fixed costs. But in any case, it is a logic that can hold.
And then the last element, there are perhaps many others, but the ones I'm thinking of right away, it could also be because you want to maintain a very high-end position on the market. And it's true that when we have put in place a rather high-end, even luxury product, sometimes with a jacuzzi, an exceptional setting, that kind of thing, if sometimes we suggest, in the mind of the traveler , that this experience can be worth less, if you are truly unique of your kind in your city, if you really offer something very different, well, you can, we call it the perception of the price by the traveler, you can suggest to him that it is worth less, potentially. And it's difficult, sometimes, to raise the price a little.
So there you have it, it could be different reasons why, in any case, you are at a stage where you say to yourself: “I don’t necessarily want to go and slash my prices. » So, what are the levers? I have brought together 5. Five levers that can help you look for reasons, things to put in place, without having to lower prices.
The first lever is to work on length of stay. You may be too picky about the minimum lengths of stay you require. The theory on length of stay, the theory of academics of revenue management, is that if we are not sure of being fully booked, we should not require a minimum length of stay. That's the theory. That is to say, when we are at school, in revenue management, we are always told: “Period of low demand, we do not require a minimum length of stay. » Because we're not sure we'll be fully booked, so in the end, we take all the reservations that come through. Afterwards, I know that from a field operational point of view, we don't always have the possibility of staying overnight. In any case, know that this is one of the things you can test if you want to keep your prices, but at the same time, try to get more reservations. You either have the possibility of saying to yourself: “I authorize one night right away”, or, if you are a little hesitant about this idea, you can say to yourself: “I am developing my one night five days before the arrival, or three days before arrival. » So that's a possibility. And if you are a master of the cold, that is to say very, very cold, you can only authorize the plugging of the holes. There are quite a few Chanels, like Beds24, for example, who call it thread gaps: filling the holes. This is the fact of authorizing one night, but only to plug holes between other stays. That's the first idea.
The second idea is that you can be more motivating, let's say, on long-term stays. You will tell me: “It’s a price reduction. » But it's still a little different, since we still have two markets for seasonal rental today. We have the short-term market, and we have the market, and it's a real market that exists, I see it every day, in my work, with the team, we see it every day in our work, we have a whole section of activity, on Booking and on Airbnb, two people looking for stays for 7 nights, 14 nights, a month, or even more than that. They are forced to make short stays, because, for example, Booking blocks above 28 nights, so they make reservations for 28 nights for us several times. So there is really a market for that on these sites more and more today, and it is quite unsuspected when we are not yet faced with this demand. How can we confront it, to open the door to this request? Well, the idea is to make reduction coefficients for longer stays. I cheated a little, since I said that we weren't changing prices at all. But for me, it's really another market. We are addressing something totally different, and in these cases, if you are well prepared, I am not saying to cut prices, but if you are well positioned for stays of 14 days, 28 nights, you will really find reservations of this order which will allow you to protect profitability. Because yes, you may have made a 10% effort, but in the end, you blocked 14 nights at once, and it's still super interesting. So, address the medium-term market, switch, in fact, your objective, and address the medium-term market.
The second point is a point that is much more usable on Booking. I said second point, I don't know if you followed. The third point, sorry. Because in fact, after 2, it's 3. The third point that I wanted to share with you is on Booking, more precisely, we have access to a certain number of booster levers. I could make a video for that, if you want, to talk to you about it in more detail. There are several boost levers in Booking, which will really help you improve the performance of your ad. And it’s true that it works. We use it. We don’t spread it like that indiscriminately across the entire calendar. We're going to put it in, as I say, surgically when we need it. But typically, this kind of situation in which we still want to protect our prices a little, while boosting performance, it really allows us to do so. So, there are three: there is genius, there is preferred, and there is visibility accelerator. The only one that really costs zero euros is the favorite. Genius will cost you a percentage. I don't recommend going above 10% at all. Sometimes, we look at extranets and we see that there are 10 – 15 – 20% placed. For me, it's very superficial. Already, 10% does the job. And then there is the visibility accelerator, where you actually grant a percentage of commissions more to Booking in exchange for being better placed in the results. These levers work. They allow you to avoid cutting your prices, and really, it helps you make many more sales, improve your position in the results, and have positive social proof for travelers. It really helps. Afterwards, obviously, it must be removed when we are no longer in this difficult period of low demand.
Another point to look at, it's really neglected, and yet I'm going to tell you, you're going to say to me: “Ah, well yes, OK, it's normal. » But in fact, frankly, from experience, believe my experience. I implore you, go take a look at Airbnb, on Booking to check this lever on your apartments, on each of your apartments, because when we take over extranets, we always have typos on these levers. These are the cancellation conditions. Make sure you have attractive cancellation conditions. During the pandemic, at the heart of the pandemic, the attractive cancellation conditions could be canceled within one day, because everyone was extremely cautious. All the travelers were cautious. They wanted to be reassured that they would be reimbursed if something went wrong. Today, you can go from one day to five days, and have something that is either one or the other. It remains completely acceptable on the market. But be sure to be cancellable within five days, because otherwise, we completely neglect the negative impact that being cancellable within 15 days or not being cancellable at all can have on sales. It's really very, very impactful. We see cases every day at J’poster Complet. So there you have it, this point seems trivial, and yet, sometimes it's just a matter of cancellation conditions. We need to go check that out. This will help you to have sales at the price you want.
And then the last point I thought about was to add, in fact, quite simply, a distribution site. Because we can say that we focus on the performance of the sites that you already have, if you are on Airbnb or Booking, for example, but another solution to sell more is also to be more present, to have more opportunities to be seen. And in these circumstances, for example, distribute on another site: consider the gîtes de France, consider the good corner, consider morningcroissant, consider shelter, etc. It is also a technique that will help you to be more visible, and therefore have more sales. To recap, for those joining us now, please ask me questions if you have any. I do the questions afterwards. If you have, moreover, questions on other subjects, do not hesitate, because this is the time to discuss together, so let's take advantage of it.
So out of the six elements that will help you maintain your prices, but by seeking new sales, the first is to work on your length of stay, to ensure that you are not too demanding on the length of stay. stay, or even that you do not require any minimum length of stay. The second is to target another market which is the medium-term market, which will help you to make reservation blocks, thus avoiding the Gruyères, and by having what in the hotel industry is called a safety reservation mattress that will help you perform excellently despite the somewhat difficult period. Do not hesitate to use the boosters which are available in the Booking extranet. We have genius, we preferred, we have the visibility accelerator. Only Favorite is completely free, just so you know. Pay attention to your cancellation policies. They can be really extremely prohibitive. So, be careful about that, it is better to be cancelable within one day or five days, but it is difficult, today, to pass much more to a traveler, and that can really penalize you in terms of sales. And potentially consider other distribution sites to increase the opportunities to be seen by travelers, and therefore the opportunities to be sold.
So. I hope this can help you, that it will be so many ideas that you will be able to implement for your apartments. I'll see if you have any questions to ask me. I missed some “hellos”.
– Hello, Diaz, welcome.
– Hello Fabrice.
– Hello Adri.
– Ah, it’s Patricia who is on Facebook. Welcome Patricia. Thank you for giving me your first name.
– Diaz tells me: “I’m in the middle of it. » OK, great. It's timely. We hadn't spoken, but you see, the video comes at the right time for your current needs.
– Alan tells me: “I recently lowered my prices to adapt to my competition, but also to the surrounding T2, while I have a T3. I got a 15 day rental as a result. »
That's a very good illustration. You see, it's quite crazy, because sometimes, when I talk about it with certain rental companies, they say to me: “But are you sure there are really people looking like that, for 28 nights. » And actually, yes. There is a market, it’s really amazing. Just a little flash on this subject, of the medium term: it's a market that exists, but it's a market that we, as savvy seasonal rental companies, will only seek to capture during periods low requests, obviously, because if August is the best month of your year, obviously, during these periods, we will not at all seek to capture medium-term reservations, therefore reservations at low prices a little more attractive for 28 nights, for example, or 14 nights, because we know that we are going to be full, we know that we have the potential to sell at ultra-high prices, and therefore, it is really excluded to put in place this type of medium-term strategy over these periods.
– Thank you, Alan, for your testimony.
– “Booking offers cancellation on D-1, but guaranteeing to find a replacement tenant or to compensate the host. I'm doubtful... have you heard of it? »
That, in fact, is reservations, I don't know what they call it anymore. If you ever look for this in your extranet, it's in the same place as where we're going to look, in optimization performance genius, preferred, you have a line, it's not available for all apartments nor for all hosts, but you have a line: reservation guarantee. I asked myself the question, in fact. Currently, to be honest, we have not put it in place for any of our clients at J'poster Complet. I read the fine print, and in fact, what I found difficult is that there is a vagueness about... what Booking tells us, excuse me. To recap, what Booking tells us is that it can be canceled on D-1, but as we participate in this guaranteed reservation system, Booking undertakes to ensure that we find a traveler in the event of cancellation. . The idea, I think, for Booking is to convince as many hosts as possible to accept reservations that can be canceled within one day so that they can reassure their travelers, convert more reservations, and therefore, to assure the host, in exchange for that, they say: “We will try to find you a reservation if there is a cancellation. » Reading the fine print, I found that Booking was not very formal about what happens if we don't find a reservation. So, when in doubt, I didn't go for it, and I didn't test it. So I don't have any feedback on that. It's true that I found that it was a little vague on: what happens in the event of problems? That is to say that there is a commitment of means, to find a reservation, but if they cannot find it, what happens? This is where I had a doubt.
– A new person from Facebook says to me: “Hi Élise. » Great, thank you. Welcome to you. Good morning.
– Another person who says: “Hello, any feedback on Booking’s risk-free cancellation program? THANKS. »
That's exactly it! “Cancellation without risk”, thank you, I was looking for the name. So, I just shared about that. For me, it's quite unclear what Booking is committing to. If anyone has had the opportunity to try the risk-free cancellation program, please let us know in the comments. See, this will help us all, because many of us are asking ourselves the question. And so, if you have tested, you have had a cancellation, and you have been able to see how Booking handles these situations, do not hesitate to share your testimony, it will really help us.
– Pascal: “Hello Élise. » Welcome Pascal.
– Little vegetable gardener said to me: “And when we start, what do you advise us? Because there are rental companies who set really low prices, and vice versa. »
When you start, what I advise you is really to train yourself in revenue management to build a revenue management strategy. That is to say, really, that you have an anticipation over a year of the level of demands that you are going to have: when will you have weak, medium, strong, event-related periods. So carefully constructing this calendar is what will determine the quality and financial performance of your activity, and then associate it with a pricing strategy, a length of stay strategy and the most efficient optimization of the subjects possible. such as cleaning fees, cancellation conditions, and all these topics to boost Booking. So for me, you have to train yourself to correctly build this starter base, and then it's very fluid, because you just have to follow, in fact, as you go along. But you really have to put in place the steps step by step to correctly build your price list.
– Adri said to me: “Do you use a percentage reduction in prices per night as you get closer to free nights? »
Ah, that's a big debate. Thank you very much, Adri, for asking me that question. I am not at all in favor of that. Why am I not in favor of this at all? Because in fact, there are two situations. I know that there are a lot of Chanel managers and price systems that will offer you this, automatically, to reduce the price over time. Except that there are two possibilities: either it concerns a period of high demand, and in which case, the closer you get to the date, the more precisely you have to hold your price, because it is a period of high demand . So that means that people will come, they will buy. We're sure to sell out, so it's a bad decision to slash the price, just because three days before, we're empty. The demand is there, you just have to be patient. It's like the stock market, you have to keep a cool head, and you will sell at a very good price. So in these cases, we lose money. And in the other case, if it concerns a period of low demand, actually, what does that mean? If after three days, we still haven't been filled, it's because we've been way too expensive for a very long time. So my recommendation is rather to set the right price upstream, to leave all the time necessary to attract customers, convert them, capture their reservations, rather than being too expensive upstream, and then clack, in three days, we lower the prices. In fact, as a result, there are only three days on which we were at the right price, and we have almost no chance of filling, because it is a period of low demand, and there is fewer travelers than during peak periods. So for me, it's better to have a real strategy, to do something well in advance, rather than starting on prices... Sometimes, I even hear: "I'll start a little higher, and then if it doesn't sell not, I would lower it. » What a waste of time! It's a shame, because it won't lead to the best filling and the best possible turnover.
– Petit potager tells me: “We are really having trouble positioning ourselves, so we are going to do some tests to see if it is rentable. »
Yes, you can also do tests, rather than building a strategy. That's true. Now the only thing is, you're going to waste time. You can do test and learn, moreover, it is quite virtuous to test a certain number of things, but there is still a certain base of elements to put in place, upstream, to avoid losing time to test everything. The example that I had the opportunity to see in the past was people who said to themselves: “I start small, then I increase little by little. » And in fact, as a result, when I took the apartment, I saw, from January to December, almost, the price was like that, in fact. And I say to myself: “But what a waste of time! » Be careful, let's be clear, I'm not saying this with arrogance or disdain. It's very important that I mention this. It's more than that that makes me sad, because I say to myself: “We have invested, we are trying to do our best for our activity, and as a result, we have 6 – 7 months which are growing little by little. » But as a result, throughout this period we did not have the maximum turnover that we deserved to have. So there you have it, that’s why it’s a subject where I say to myself: “Ah, that’s a shame. » We can do it like that, but it is better to build your strategy from the start to do things well, and immediately have the profitability of our activity that we deserve.
– Alan tells me: “I have activated Booking’s risk-free cancellation program, but haven’t used it yet. »
Great, great. Well listen, you tell me what you thought about it. I don't wish you to have an annulment, though. But if ever, if by chance, a cancellation were to occur, I would be really delighted if you would share with us, in a future Live, how it went? That would be super interesting.
– On Facebook, I was told: “In fact Booking is lowering its commission to have a really attractive customer price on canceled nights. So indeed, good luck finding a replacement customer, but our direct price is not at all competitive. »
OK, agreed. That's interesting. So on this risk-free cancellation program, it is Booking which makes an effort on its commission. I didn't think that was it. This is not guaranteed, therefore. Because we're going to be more attractive, but... let's say that it doesn't really convince me that it's super efficient. But to test. But what I tell myself is that on apartments that are positioned more upscale, even if Booking makes an effort on its commission, there will still be a lot of people who will be much cheaper than us. So if it's someone who's really looking for value, if we tell ourselves that we're only going to find people through price, I'm not sure that's very effective. I was thinking, not to hide anything from you, but I made a film in my head a priori. I thought, in fact, as I know that Booking needs to reaccommodate a certain number of travelers constantly, because of water leak, because of bad price, the host calls saying: "no, that can't be pass", I thought that we were entering a bit into a pool of potentially relocatable apartments, and that as a result, that's how we had priority, because the Booking agents took us as a priority in fact to rehouse the travelers who had to be relocated. So a priori, I completely made up a scenario in my head. It has nothing to do with that. But I find that it would be much more efficient, rather than making a reduction of 5% or 10% on the Booking commission. Maybe I'm wrong, case to follow.
– Alan, when you have an opportunity, honestly, tell us. It's going to be super interesting.
– Someone says to me: “Hello” from Facebook. Great, thank you. Welcome.
I'm going to look at the questions we got on Instagram.
– Welcome everyone.
– Prestige tells me: “I had a cancellation three days ago…”
Ah, so you are in the cancellation program. Great, so tell us.
– You say: “I had a cancellation three days ago. First, I received an email from Booking, telling me that a customer wanted to cancel free of charge, same day cancellation. »
So you missed the email, and you were paid the rental price. So, I'm not sure that this is the risk-free cancellation program. That's a bit like he's in your cancellation policy, and in which case, he asks for a favor, and you refuse it, so you get paid in full. I have the impression that this is perhaps a little more the case, but you tell me.
– Hello, Perrine, welcome: “A little late”. No worries, welcome to you.
– Alan asks me another question about YouTube: “Live idea: Is there any point in doing advertising campaigns on social networks Facebook, etc.? It's free, but is it really useful? »
So you're not talking about Facebook Adword, or things like that, but more about posting on groups, the lodge, etc. Yes, I could talk about it. It's true that I have a misunderstanding with people who post their ads like that in Facebook groups, for example, of real estate investors. Because I don't really see the method. But we can talk about it again, with great pleasure.
Listen, I thank you for being, once again, numerous with me.
– Hello Roman, welcome.
Thank you for your presence and for these always very interesting exchanges. It's a real pleasure. I hope that what we were able to share today will help you, could have helped you. So I'm telling you, see you Thursday for the next Live at noon, either on our YouTube channel, on our Facebook group or on Instagram. There you go, I wish you a very good week and I'll see you Thursday.