BuyWithMe

2013年7月18日

谢丽尔•罗斯纳(Cheryl Rosner)前世曾是团购网站BuyWithMe的首席执行官。在她离开后，这家团购网站陷入困境，最终被Gilt City收购。从早期开始，对团购公司的持续抨击之一是，他们会尽一切努力为消费者争取最优惠的价格，无论这对参与的企业是否有意义。现在，随着Stayful的测试版推出，罗斯纳正试图为企业——特别是精品酒店和独立酒店——提供一种更平衡的替代方式，以出售未售出的库存，而不会把所有的权力都拱手让给寻找便宜货的消费者。她在一次采访中表示:“对于很多(团购网站)来说，一切都是为了让消费者获得更好的价格。”“我们专注于让买家和卖家走得更近，这样才能有一笔公平的交易，建立一种持续的关系。”Stayful的工作原理如下。消费者可以通过市场来浏览未来30天的酒店房源。Stayful显示了该酒店在网络上其他地方的最佳价格，以及Stayful游客可以做出的建议“出价”。罗斯纳说，出价通常会低于最好的标价。入住的游客可以自己出价，酒店也有机会接受出价或进行反出价。 For hotels that Stayful has a partnership with — denoted as “instant” hotels — consumers will get feedback immediately on whether their bid was accepted or rejected. For the rest of the hotels — which comprise 80 to 90 percent of Stayful hotel listings right now — the company will manually take the bid to the hotel and ask them if they will accept it. Stayful asks its users for 24 hours to give feedback on the bid in those instances. The hotels with which Stayful is directly partnering provide the startup with a percentage range for discounts that they are willing to accept from bidders. This range is based on factors such as the day of the week of the proposed booking and the length of stay. When a hotel accepts a bid, Stayful takes 10 percent of the price off the top and sends along the remaining 90 percent to the hotel. Hotel stays booked through the bidding process are non-refundable. “It’s hard to find these little gems,” Rosner said of the category, which accounts for about a third of all hotel rooms in the U.S. “Our focus is on aggregating this category of hotel rooms and bring them together in a way that’s very searchable.” The site is launching with two markets — New York City and San Francisco — and will stay in private beta for two more months. When it opens up to the public, it’ll be in seven cities, and 12 by year’s end. Search is still a huge driver of hotel bookings, so Stayful will have its work cut out to outmaneuver the Hotels.coms and Expedias of the world for top billing on Google search pages. Stayful recently received $2.4 million in funding in a round led by Canaan Partners. Tagged with: boutique hotel, Cheryl Rosner, Expedia , hotel booking, Hotels.com, Stayful