Saturday, February 25, 2017

Online ticket-booking websites like Cleartrip, BookMyShow, MakeMyTrip, Yatra.com, etc., deceptively and covertly add some sort of "convenience fee" at the last step

They don't reveal these rather significant charges, and if they do, it's in such a small-sized print placed at such an awkward place that it's hardly visible amd hence doesn't qualify as "we fully informed all customers". These websites non-insignificantly increase your switching cost by first making you go through the entire booking process, including filling names, details, etc., and only after one has "invested" a significant amount of time/energy and is thus more "committed". They know that one is significantly less likely to abandon booking [upon seeing the onerous "convenience" charges in the end] once one has spent a great deal of time/energy on filling forms, etc. That's the psychology they exploit. Their revenues/profits aren't based on only delivering real value to their customers. Part of it also comes from pure deception and nefarious psychological tricks.









Update [11-Apr-17]: Seen today.