Jeff Eglen is looking forward to his trip later this week to Ticket Summit at the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino in Las Vegas. The Vice President of Strategy for the dynamic pricing company Digonex will present on the panel “Pricing Strategies for Ticket Sellers” on Friday, July 17. He and his fellow panel members have been busy planning their presentation, and Eglen feels confident that it will be a crowd pleaser. “It’s a very interesting panel. I think we’re going to have lot of broad experience among the members, [with many areas of ticketing represented]. I think there will be a really good discussion, with some very smart people on the panel.”
For his part, Eglen intends to focus on the new and innovative work that his company is doing in dynamic ticket pricing, and what these innovations can bring to ticketing and its related industries. “[Dynamic pricing] is starting to become more widespread throughout the ticketing industry. What we are talking about in our concept is the ability to change prices in real time in response to demand. We monitor sales as tickets are selling and run those through our system, which includes algorithms…based on econometric and behavioral models.” In this way, prices can adjust quickly and continually in response to consumer demand. According to the Digonex website, this pricing system, called the Digital Online Exchange (DOE TM), allows for serial price adjustments, optimizing ticket prices as sales can repeatedly “hit the ‘sweet spot’ where consumer demand and market potential meet”.
Eglen notes that in the array of dynamic pricers in the market, his company is unique. “We [price] in response to real time demand, so we’re able to take advantage of things that happen. Once a concert goes on sale, sometimes events occur that would affect pricing, and in a regular fixed model you can’t take advantage of that. If the weather is great and there is higher demand, you can take advantage of that. If demand falls off and you have a lot of empty seats, we can [adjust pricing] to raise demand.” He notes that in this way, should a negative event impact sales, discounting can be brought to minimum levels in order to protect profits while at the same time maintaining an acceptable rate of sale.
Prior to joining his brother Jan five years ago in the company that Jan started, Eglen worked with Accenture for over twenty years, providing systems building and other technological support to a number of top companies, including Oracle, Microsoft, eBay and SAP. Although Digonex has been offering its unique pricing system to clients for the past two years, the company has been in operation since 2000, devoting its first years to research and development and ensuring their patent.
Eglen believes the current potential for dynamic pricing is great, with ready application to a number of areas, including retail sales as well as live sporting and music events. He is eager to see what his company can do in the world of ticketing. “We think there are great opportunities in the ticketing market, and that’s an area that we’ve made our commitment and focus.”
