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Are 14 people really looking at that product? (2020)

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Re: Are 14 people really looking at that product? (2020)

#51

Post by phiresky »

dessant wrote: post #28

The first time we booked a place on Booking.com, we were anxious the entire afternoon. Not sure if things have changed, but at that time they made it feel like a racing game, flashy countdowns, everything but THAT place sold out in the area, OTHER PEOPLE WERE LOOKING AT IT, several email notifications in the span of hours because we haven't decided yet, and now it might be TOO LATE if we refresh the page. I wouldn't…

This only got better (at least here) because booking.com had to change their practices after legal action from the EU consumer protection commission.

> As a market leader, it is vital that companies like Booking.com meet their responsibilities in this area, ensuring that online accommodation reservation systems are free from manipulative techniques such as hiding sponsoring in ranking, unduly putting time pressure on users or misrepresenting rebates.

> Booking.com has committed to make the following changes to their practices by 16 June 2020 at the latest:

* Make clear to consumers that any statement such as “last room available!” refers only to the offer on the Booking.com platform;

* Not present an offer as being time-limited if the same price will still be available afterwards;

* Clarify how results are ranked and, whether payments made by the accommodation provider to Booking.com have influenced its position in the list of results;

* Ensure that it is clear when a price comparison is based on different circumstances (e.g. stay dates) and not present that comparison as a discount;

* Ensure that price comparisons presented as discounts represent genuine savings, e.g. by providing details about the Standard Rate price taken as a reference;

* Display the total price that the consumers will have to pay (including all unavoidable charges, fees and taxes that can reasonably be calculated in advance) in a clear and prominent way;

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/es/ip_19_...

Re: Are 14 people really looking at that product? (2020)

#52

Post by woutr_be »

ratww wrote: post #35
dessant wrote: post #28

The first time we booked a place on Booking.com, we were anxious the entire afternoon. Not sure if things have changed, but at that time they made it feel like a racing game, flashy countdowns, everything but THAT place sold out in the area, OTHER PEOPLE WERE LOOKING AT IT, several email notifications in the span of hours because we haven't decided yet, and now it might be TOO LATE if we refresh the page. I wouldn't…

Booking.com is a terrible company in pretty much every regard. I've had a reservation to a hotel that was pretty full according to the website scare tactics, but when I got there I was the only person to come in weeks. Also, their support is abysmal. Often when hotels fail to provide rooms as advertised, they play a "not my fault" game with the hotels, where the hotels claim they can't refund because the money is stu…

> Also, their support is abysmal. Often when hotels fail to provide rooms as advertised, they play a "not my fault" game with the hotels, where the hotels claim they can't refund because the money is stuck with Booking.com while Booking.com claim the money is in the hotels account. Then they give you a "20% refund" that you can use on your next purchase there.

I'm going through the exact same dispute with VRBO (Expedia Group). The apartment that we rented wasn't at all what was advertised, so we left after one night. VRBO first said that because we left voluntarily, there was nothing they could do. After pointing out that we still have our booking as active, they said we need to talk to the owner directly. After pointing out that the owner is just ignoring our messages, they just said that they handle as a middle-man between us and the owner.

After pointing out that the apartment isn't what is advertised, and that the reviews don't even match the property, they said that we agreed to their terms and conditions. I then spend a couple of hours looking at their other terms and conditions, and pointing out that the owner had agreed with these, but that they had broken several of their terms and conditions by apparently using the same listing for multiple properties.

VRBO finally agreed and refunded us their 10% service fee, but claimed that the rest of the money is already with the owner, so we need to talk to them for a refund. (They have ignored us for weeks now)

I'm still baffled that they would handle it this way. First completely dodging any responsibility, only taking some responsibility after highlighting that the owner had broken several of their rules, and only refunding us their service fees. I never paid any money directly to the owner, so I have no clue how the owner will ever refund me.

At this point I don't even really care about the money that was lost, but the fact that both VRBO and the owner are willing to just take my money (1500 EURO), for a single night in their falsely advertised property infuriates me to no end. And I'm doing anything in my power to make their lives as difficult as possible.

Re: Are 14 people really looking at that product? (2020)

#53

Post by throwaway4good »

11235813213455 wrote: post #48

It should even be illegal to display these kind of fake metrics

It probably is. Many countries have broadly formulated laws regulating marketing preventing things like false advertisement, displaying fake before prices etc. Though someone needs to enforce those laws.

Re: Are 14 people really looking at that product? (2020)

#54

Post by virgilp »

ratww wrote: post #35
dessant wrote: post #28

The first time we booked a place on Booking.com, we were anxious the entire afternoon. Not sure if things have changed, but at that time they made it feel like a racing game, flashy countdowns, everything but THAT place sold out in the area, OTHER PEOPLE WERE LOOKING AT IT, several email notifications in the span of hours because we haven't decided yet, and now it might be TOO LATE if we refresh the page. I wouldn't…

Booking.com is a terrible company in pretty much every regard. I've had a reservation to a hotel that was pretty full according to the website scare tactics, but when I got there I was the only person to come in weeks. Also, their support is abysmal. Often when hotels fail to provide rooms as advertised, they play a "not my fault" game with the hotels, where the hotels claim they can't refund because the money is stu…

As an opposing pov: we mostly use booking.com for our reservations, and have never had an issue with them, and found their support useful the one or two times we needed it. They're the best reservation site that I know (others are way worse), and are fairly customer friendly [+]. I still book directly whenever I can because I don't want the hosts to pay the rather large booking.com fees... but we often find places to stay through them, and use them for 1 night stays, or places that don't necessarily inspire lots of confidence (e.g. have custom-implemented payment methods), or places that require payment in advance while offering cancel-able options on booking.com.

[+] Yes they use scare tactics but come on, they're easy to ignore. Who cares it's the only available room and 500 people are looking at it right now and 5 of them are already typing in the credit card details? Not me. If I can't get that particular room, I'll get another one, whatever. (I guess it also helps that we often book ~1year in advance, so we're reasonably confident that we'll eventually find something).

Re: Are 14 people really looking at that product? (2020)

#55

Post by jevoten »

dessant wrote: post #28

The first time we booked a place on Booking.com, we were anxious the entire afternoon. Not sure if things have changed, but at that time they made it feel like a racing game, flashy countdowns, everything but THAT place sold out in the area, OTHER PEOPLE WERE LOOKING AT IT, several email notifications in the span of hours because we haven't decided yet, and now it might be TOO LATE if we refresh the page. I wouldn't…

At what point does this become fraud? If they were selling stocks, and making it appear they had more buy orders than in reality, they'd be in jail. But sell hotel reservations, and you can lie about the state of the market with impunity?

Re: Are 14 people really looking at that product? (2020)

#56

Post by [deleted] »

k_ wrote: post #5
skilled wrote: post #3

Is the idea that multiple people are looking at a product supposed to inspire me to purchase it? I really struggle to understand the logic.

But look, there are only 2 items left, and 5 have been sold in the past hour. Also, 15 people are also currently looking at this product, so you better hurry and buy it before it's too late! ... or before you think twice and realize you don't need this product at all.

[deleted]

Re: Are 14 people really looking at that product? (2020)

#57

Post by Aeolun »

ratww wrote: post #35
dessant wrote: post #28

The first time we booked a place on Booking.com, we were anxious the entire afternoon. Not sure if things have changed, but at that time they made it feel like a racing game, flashy countdowns, everything but THAT place sold out in the area, OTHER PEOPLE WERE LOOKING AT IT, several email notifications in the span of hours because we haven't decided yet, and now it might be TOO LATE if we refresh the page. I wouldn't…

Booking.com is a terrible company in pretty much every regard. I've had a reservation to a hotel that was pretty full according to the website scare tactics, but when I got there I was the only person to come in weeks. Also, their support is abysmal. Often when hotels fail to provide rooms as advertised, they play a "not my fault" game with the hotels, where the hotels claim they can't refund because the money is stu…

We arrived at a hotel, then found out we could get the room for a cheaper rate than we got on booking.

The hotel was very helpful, and we cancelled the booking both from our, as well as the hotel’s side. Nonetheless it took Booking.com days to decide that the refund was legitimate.

Re: Are 14 people really looking at that product? (2020)

#60

Post by qw »

kamray23 wrote: post #33
egeozcan wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the end I wrote many of that stuff my own with real data If you implemented the "looking at" functionality, are you keeping a connection open to the client (say, via WS) to determine if they are still looking as in keeping the tab open (or opencv with camera access to see that they are "actually" looking hehe), or are you just looking a few minutes back instead of hours? How would one honestly implement this fea…

Naively without thinking about it. Session Id, setInterval sending a ping every few seconds, clear the id if the ping fails to arrive. Smooth it by taking an average or sum over anywhere between a few minutes to a few days, depending on what you're selling. Some things take more thought and as such those numbers can be quite a bit higher. There's no need to put any more thought in than that. It's a single design elem…

If you have real time analytics, you probably have a way to count visits to that page in the last X minutes. If I was a visitor, that number would be good enough for me. If the site also made it clear that it was not an exact number, it would of course be even better ("10 to 20" or similar)
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