With the merger of its parent company Ticketmaster with Live Nation essentially complete, secondary ticketing company TicketsNow is adopting a new business plan to boost its revenues.
On the sales side, the company this week raised the percentage it charges in service fees from 15 percent to 18.5 percent. As a result, a Taylor Swift ticket on the site that costs $80 now carries a service fee of $14.80 instead of $12.
By contrast, competing secondary ticket exchange StubHub, which is also the nation’s second-biggest overall ticketing company, charges about 10 percent.
Separately on the sellers side, TicketsNow has changed some of the rules it uses to reward larger brokers with better prices for the tickets they list. Smaller brokers who don’t meet certain sales thresholds will see their rebates lowered or eliminated.
The moves mark the first major initiatives under the direction of new CEO Ron Bension, who was tapped for the company’s top spot last month. Whether the changes were in the works before he was hired is unknown. Periodically, the major ticket exchanges – TicketsNow, StubHub, RazorGator and TicketNews parent company TicketNetwork – make adjustments to their fee and rebate schedules to reflect changes in the market, which can sometimes raise the hackles of brokers and fans.
Spokespeople for TicketsNow did not return messages seeking comment.
In TicketsNow’s case, the company is coming off of a tough 2009 during which its business practices with Ticketmaster came under intense scrutiny, and the two were the subject of multiple lawsuits. In addition, Ticketmaster was forced to settle a complaint with the former New Jersey attorney general for the way the companies allegedly mistreated consumers who sought to buy Bruce Springsteen tickets.
“TicketsNow is trying to force brokers into giving them a discount while simultaneously their parent company is on record looking to put us out of business,” said one disgruntled TicketsNow broker/client. “When will the greed and apathy of the brokers get replaced by the reality that this company should not be selling our seats and having access to our information?”
Last Updated on February 11, 2010
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Seems like a great move! Raise your prices compared with your competitors to prevent revenue falling…..now which genius thought that one up?
I wonder why it wasn’t ‘ticket news’ when Ticket Network increased their broker rates – yet again? Why doesn’t Ticket News post the letter Don sent to all his broker praising himself as an ‘industry leader’ and saying the fee hikes and increases to the already convoluted rebate system they have in place is somehow beneficial to their brokers? As far as customer service goes, I will admit that Tickets Now has become more friendly to the end consumer and has created far more transparency to it’s customers than it’s competitors, particularly Ticket Network, who probably engages in more spec and shorting than any of their competitors, which is why it’s a great place for part-time, amateur, and sketchy brokers. I’m not saying Tickets Now is perfect – far from it, but as a good sized broker, I would give my business to them any day over Ticket Network and think Don and his gang should look in the mirror at how little credibility they have when stacked against their competitors before they exert anymore energy using this forum to criticize them.
JULIA VANDER PLOEG: Is that you posting? At least Don and his “gang” at TicketNetwork pay their affiliates / partners. Can you say the same thing? 😉
What a surprise that the merger went through and then immediately after they tighten the screws us brokers and if you don’t see the writing on the wall you deserve what you get.
Looks like Ticketsnow took a page from Don “Cosa Nostro” Vaccaro. They are both thieves-forcing their ticket suppliers with unwanted “Seller” fees and telling them its for their own good. “It will increase business” B.S. It will fill there pockets! They just want us to pay for their advertising and marketing so they can profit more. We put them in business and made them millions. Now they want more of our already dwindling profits. Stand Up fellow ticket resellers!
I fully agree with you, the brokers need to stand up, these companies make LOTS of money off the brokers and screw with us in the process. Sure wish there was something else out there besides tnow and tnetwork. Wish there was a way for us to revolt and boycott both those sites and upload our inventory elsewhere. Donnie Vacarro, you are just a cheaper wanna be version of Azoff when it comes to GREED. That’s not a compliment!!!!
I’m switching to Ticket Technology ASAP. Look into it. They want your inventory to sell, not to charge you to sell it.
Yeah TN should totally go back to the old 3% – 5% model so their good brokers pay more, and bad brokers pay less.
Having recently switched to Ticket Technology from Ticket Network, I highly recommend any professional, full-time broker strongly consider doing the same. They have a higher level of professionalism than most of the people I dealt with at TN; when you call TT’s support they actually answer the phone; their fees are more reasonable; and they have far more professional brokers on their network and less amateur/part-timers than TN. I also find their POS more stable and user-friendly. Once they complete the live tie-in with StubHub later this year, any professional full-time broker would be crazy to be with anyone else. Let TN keep all their part-time brokers doing it as a hobby, I’ll go with TT and their network of professional, reliable brokers, and a CEO that cares about the industry for more than just how much money he can pocket off it.
Are we supposed to know who this person is?
Since this is an open forum, allow me to express my opinion of this “company”. You would have never heard of them if it wasn’t for the fact thatStubHub bought them. Not many brokers have websites plugged into them, and you will be getting very few broker orders. Our business took a dive when we signed up with them, plus theirwebsite has tons of errors. Good luck. They will charge you for any little software help you need, even though they may have said they won’t charge you for it. They will charge you for orders you canceled, and you should go through your credit card bill with a fine tooth comb, because ONCE THEY GET YOUR CREDIT CARD they will go to town with it. Can’t say other sites are innocent of that either. And good luck if you are using theirFedEx bulk account and you have a problem with a FedEx delivery. They can’t be bothered once they have signed you up (before that, it was used as one of their sales pitches that they had so much clout because it was a large account). Some of their staff can be outright rude. Their best technical support guy quit. Your data will disappear every so often. If they fix it after a few weeks, it will happen again. Count me out. Again, you get what you pay for.
Switching from TND POS to Ticket Techonology was the best decision our compnay ever made. Our sales are up, our margins are WAY up. You are better off w/o TND
Almost all of the nations largest brokers (ie Barry’s) use them
and their current broker lust is north of 1200. I’m not sure how long ago you had your problems, but based on my experiences with them, I’ve been far more satisfied with TT than TN.
and our problems are recent problems, not “long ago”. We also found that these “large brokers” as you call them, substitute other tickets when they get online orders on your tickets, so putting your inventory online with theirwebsites only gets them orders, but won’t get you the sale. They are notorious for circumventing the selling broker and getting the tickets elsewhere. Whereas a computerized system such as StubHub or TicketsNow does not have human intervention to cancel or substitute your sale.
Also, TT was started by these “large brokers”, as a close-knit business and they all owned a share of it, earning extra income from the fees charged. So whenStubHub bought it recently (don’t know how they even heard about it), they all came out with extra cash. I don’t care how many brokers they have listed on their site, there were numerous times that we would call a broker for tickets listed, and the broker would say “I am not with them, I don’t have those tickets any more, I don’t know why they are listing my tickets”. Meanwhile we would have a sale that we could not fill, and we were the ones who looked bad with our customer, especially on some hot tickets that we could not find elsewhere. Not just once, many times.
Pretty sure that paying less than 3% means that good brokers are paying less than they were before. There is no way you can paint that blue horse red.
Everyone is paying more, not just bad brokers. TN shouldn’t be charging anyone more than 5% period, especially with absurd service fees they gauge your customers out of. You shouldn’t be penalized if you want to ship USPS over FedEx, for example. TN sells you on being a POS that will give you the autonomy to run your business your way but their fee system is so involved it pretty much dictates how you have to run your business unless or else you pay10% in fees. Even moving past the fees, the sales volume is pitiful if you have any sort of significant sports inventory.
Which POS is better and why? I agree with you on Tn and their gouging, We can bet our last dollar that maybe one or two brokers get this rebate. One of them was probably the one they kicked off their system last year, a broker from Texas. They no longer wanted to share. Any surprise? Those of you that are listed on TT, that are praising their system would love to know who you are. As for the TN reps, those smucks are so good at lying to the brokers. TNT and Tnow are in a race as to who is the worst pos, but would love to bail from my current system.
I’ve been with TT for a while and have NEVER had such a problem, and I have yet to hear any major complaints from other brokers who I deal with who use TT as their POS. Ticket Network, on the other hand, is the laughing stock of the ticket board/POS industry. Everyone knows they’ll sign up anyone, and the original poster wasn’t kidding when he said half the guys on their aren’t even full-time brokers. You may have had your problems with some brokers, but nothing is worse than needing ticket and getting some guy’s voicemail, then not hearing back until several hours later when he’s left his ‘real’ job.
Perhaps you should see how many brokers actually pay 3%. It’s not very many. When my fee hiked to 6%, my idiot rep gave me some schpeel about how I’m a bad broker and very few brokers they have pay more than 5%. Not true! For the next six months, before I dumped those clowns, ever broker I dealt with I asked, including some major brokers, and not a single one was paying less than 5%. The whole concept of their BS ‘rebate’ system is to design it so that they can say it rewards the best brokers, but all the parameters of the system are setup so you either let them dictate how you run your business, or pay up the a** in fees. No thanks. Other POS vendors charge as little as 2% FLAT…no silly, complicated rebate system designed into getting you to pay more in fees. TN is really best for amateur brokers with little to no experience dealing with other brokers and/or a POS system. It’s a nice entry level system, but once you want to expand your businrss, you’re better off taking your POS elsewhere.
I had my rep explain the rating system to me and it is quite simple to understand, basic concepts like fill rate %, process time, and fedex are really the only ones that matter for my rating heavily and I could be only paying 2% to TND if those only values are high…the others are just fluff I can use to keep my % low if I have to reject some orders and such.
I’m sorry but it just sounds like you have an axe to grind against TN as opposed to valid information.