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Is OpenTable Worth it?

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Re: Is OpenTable Worth it?

#51

Post by waterlesscloud »

herdrick wrote: post #45
d2viant wrote: post #19

This is an interesting opportunity to profit from. This company has massive expectations baked into it's stock price (NASDAQ: OPEN), trading at over a hundred times earnings. It's being massively shorted by the hedge funds. Combine the fact that there's relatively no barrier to entry with the rumors that their customer base isn't very satisfied makes for a huge opportunity to profit in the short/medium term.

> no barrier to entry There's a pretty big network effect.

You only have to take this on in a particular market to start. It makes no difference that OT has restaurants in NYC if you're competing in SF.

Re: Is OpenTable Worth it?

#52

Post by noodle »

gphil wrote: post #40

One thing I've noticed about OpenTable is that usually when I can't make a reservation through their service (e.g. when it says there are no available times left) I can still call the restaurant and be accommodated. After doing this a few times now, it's made me wonder about the value-added for the restaurant-goer as well as for the restaurant. It seems like in these situations, OpenTable is just getting in the way o…

this is mostly speculation, but my guess based on experience is that most places only allow opentable to book one or two tables per time slot. i've been rejected several times by a few places and instead walked in to a not particularly crowded place.

Re: Is OpenTable Worth it?

#54

Post by sandGorgon »

rubyrescue wrote: post #2

My sense is the point of sale aspect of OpenTable is what makes them so entrenched... it's not easy to replace the hardware, retrain staff, etc, and the article doesn't touch on this. Is there a startup competing in this space directly against OpenTable? Is Yelp the biggest potential contender (though i can't see them getting into the POS business)? Or Google?I could see google offering android-powered POS devices...

[ with 200$ 10.1' android multi-touch devices e.g. http://goo.gl/S5JHs (I would suspect that wholesale costs would be closer to 100$). ]

For seeding 10000 restaurants, you would barely need a million and half dollars (not counting android app development). I daresay that you could make the interface close enough without infringing on copyright issues.

The key is to lock down a hardware manufacturer who can supply the devices with a low failure rate.

Re: Is OpenTable Worth it?

#55

Post by prawn »

jimbokun wrote: post #22
prawn wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In August, I used OpenTable to get a reservation at a Michelin-starred restaurant in CA (is Sonoma considered Bay Area? I'm not from the US so not sure) about 15 minutes beforehand. Process worked perfectly. At 8pm, we arrived at a hotel in the area and looked online for a place to eat. By 8:10 we'd booked. By 8:16, we'd ironed clothes, showered, driven and arrived for a great meal. Ringing around looking for a table…

"By 8:10 we'd booked. By 8:16, we'd ironed clothes, showered, driven and arrived for a great meal." Wow. You iron, shower, and drive a whole lot faster than I do.

While one of us was showering, the other was trying to get the booking, ironing, etc. I am often late to get ready in the mornings but on this occasion I could've set some sort of speed record. It was frantic.

Remarkably, our GPS failed and we were relying on remembering a Google Maps view of the path we needed to take onto and off of the freeway. Fluked that too.

Re: Is OpenTable Worth it?

#56

Post by nikcub »

I think a good idea for the restaurants would be to add 'OpenTable' as a line item on the bill. This would get the message to customers, but may only work if a significant portion of restaurants in an area follow suit.

Re: Is OpenTable Worth it?

#57

Post by danielharan »

d2viant wrote: post #19

This is an interesting opportunity to profit from. This company has massive expectations baked into it's stock price (NASDAQ: OPEN), trading at over a hundred times earnings. It's being massively shorted by the hedge funds. Combine the fact that there's relatively no barrier to entry with the rumors that their customer base isn't very satisfied makes for a huge opportunity to profit in the short/medium term.

Is it legal to short a company and enter the market with an OSS solution or other competitive offer?

Re: Is OpenTable Worth it?

#58

Post by digitailor »

The bottom line is squeezing an industry with 5% profit margins cannot possibly last. This is the basic point I took from the author's extremely well written and obviously experience-infused post.

5% margins??? Seriously???

My sympathies to anyone in this shithole of an industry. That's impossible. No wonder all the restauranteurs/restaurant-employees I know are unhappy or insane. Or both.

Re: Is OpenTable Worth it?

#59

Post by stevenwei »

d2viant wrote: post #36
krosaen wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No barrier to entry? Don't they outfit each customer with a complete table management system including the hardware?

That's not a huge barrier though. The restaurant didn't have some outlay of capital for that hardware that is going to motivate their decision to switch. When they cancel their OpenTable contract, they'll just send the hardware back. This seems like an opportune space for a startup to compete in. You could easily sell the online reservation service for a fraction of what OT is charging and just skip the hardware nons…

The other big barrier is integrating their reservation system with whatever point of sale system the restaurant is using. (Of which there are many. All with different SDKs. Most of which cost lots of money to get access to).

A reservation/waitlist system that doesn't interact with the restaurant's point of sale system is mostly pointless as you need to be able to track real time table availability.

Re: Is OpenTable Worth it?

#60

Post by dasil003 »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #3

"[R]estaurants find that they themselves no longer own the customer relationship." This is the dumbest thing I've read today. I am sitting in your restaurant! I am voting with my dollars by choosing to show up at your establishment! If I like what you have to offer, odds are I'll be happy to give up some personal information. If you want to know my email address to inform me of special events, or to give me a gift ce…

The statement:

This is the dumbest thing I've read today.

and:

if I need a reservation to eat at your establishment, and you're not on Urbanspoon's Rez system or on OpenTable, you may as well not even exist.

are in direct conflict.

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