How BookEazy got its groove back
On December 15th, we discontinued the membership based BookEazy movie ticketing service. An overwhelming response from movie-goers perplexed by our decision to pause operations, compelled us write out our own experiences and why we decided to hibernate for the time being.
All startups and first-time entrepreneurs struggle in their search for a definitive identity in their formative years. Our own journey started with the determination to provide a service around movie tickets that was secure and convenient to use. Some time in the latter half of 2006, we fixed on a “pay-at-the-multiplex” service in order to achieve this. Our focus was the movie-goer and any barrier that stood between the movie plan and the multiplex had to be removed.
With the movie-going experience as a yardstick, we did incredibly well. My honest surprise stems from the fact that we exceeded the expectations of consumers in an area where none of the team members had any formal training.
cmmend u 4 bookeazy effort btw. it wasnt a cheap desi clone ala say BIGflix
it did wht it did well ~ spontaneous tweet from someone who uses BookEazy… more.
This is not to say we did every thing right. Our mistakes were well noted and we responded aggressively and quickly. We received feedback on every little thing from the text we had up on our website, to our levels of communication with multiplexes.
Credit for our ability to win the hearts and minds of customers belongs to our guys focusing on operations & marketing. They worked tirelessly through weekends and public holidays to deliver entertainment. Many BookEazy members now know them by their first names.
Credit for our ability to win over the online movie-goer belongs to our guys building and testing our product. They worked incredibly hard to ensure a flawless web service that enticed movie-goers to convert one out of every three movie searches.
BookEazy truly is a product of a lot of energy, enthusiasm from all of us. In less than a year of all out operation, we reached well over 16,000 movie-goers, their friends and families. Even at this time we continue to work hard to ensure a smooth transition for all our customers.
So then why is the service going away? As it turns out, there are significant forces that we cannot control. There has been a significant shift in the way Multiplexes view their customer-facing partners. They now see online ticket-booking as a premium service and have enforced policies to tilt the economics away from aggregators towards the owner of the inventory.
This is where BookEazy is unable to fit in – the genesis of our concept being the same ticket price to the movie-goer, independent of the purchase channel. It has become necessary for BookEazy to go in to hibernation and seriously look at a ground up change in how it works.
Our aim has always been that any experience working at BookEazy should turn out to be incredibly valuable to the individual. We have the proud distinction of having forged three more entrepreneurs (other than ourselves), top coders, and bravehearts who live and breathe by top-notch benchmarks for customer delight.
BookEazy, our first scale venture – also helped us shape our own identities. I believe that our team possesses the urge to design and create incredible value for the global marketplace that is the Internet. This is where we have our sights trained. Expect a lot more from us in the future.
See Also,
- BookEazy customers on what value BookEazy added to their lives.
- Zappos CEO on Poker and Business – It’s never too late to change tables.
How does Ticketmaster survive ? Wouldn’t they face the same problems which BookEazy faced. They achieved success through scale, leaving no option to the inventory owners but to choose their medium for ticketing.
The blogpost was misleading… I thought bookeasy was back!!!
(((((
I’ll definitely miss the simplicity and convenience of bookeazy
I meant: The _title_ was misleading.
@Anagha:
Like we said on the website “Picture abhi baki hain mere dost” .. so we hope to be back too.
1. I loved bookeazy, and I’ll miss it until it comes back.
2. The usability of the site was a clear differentiator for me, and the reason I refuse to even look at the competition (if there is any)
3. So, it is one multiplex or a couple or all of them? Will a signature campaign of customers help?
I will definitely miss bookeazy for the fact that it was very simple to use.It solved the real life problem for movie goers,most services lack this aspect.All the best for future guys!!
-Nikhil Ambekar
I realized the place bookeazy had in my life yesterday when I assumed I will get the tickets online for my favourite movie, and could not find any other provider who would serve my theater. You miss the loved ones more when they are not around, otherwise you assume they will always be there for you.
Sad too see you go away into hibernation, but i’m sure the outcome of this pause will be a much better bookeazy.
Well a lot of my friends only booked their tickets from bookeazy. All I can say is the multiplexes are being incredibly shortsighted. Killing a sales channel is stupid. Especially since their own portals suck with IE only Javascript and late 90′s style websites.
Best of Luck for whatever your plans are. Keep us posted.
Cheers!!
-Tarun
Thanks you all for the encouraging words. We are going to miss the opportunity to impact your experience at the movies.
The response we are receiving from customers of the service is overwhelming with messages letting us know how much they enjoyed the service and that they are sorry to see it go away.
At this time, we’re busy with wrap-up work and have made arrangements for them to continue to book their tickets conveniently in our absence.
Thanks much!
Hi Guys,
Great post and an even better shot at building bookeazy. You guys really got the UI bit bang on along with understanding the pains of purchasing tickets.
Talk to you sometime later today
Best wishes always,
Vijay
Thanks Vijay, your comment means a lot to all of us. Definitely look forward to talking to you.
This is a struggle for channel power. You will not be allowed to become big until you attain critical size. Keep up your good spirits. Hope to see your service back live soon.
Hi TechPR, you certainly make a valid point. We all would have loved to see BookEazy attain critical size. Thank you for the comment.
Anjali, as a fellow entrepreneur, I am so sorry to see your project go. I have never used bookeazy but the concept is really novel. Would have loved to see it become a big force – I hope you guys are working on it ( while hibernating)
But look at the bright side, you learnt the most valuable lessons on startups. the big fish always try to eat the smaller ones. I guess, it is very important to make a niche for one’s product ( which you are doing superbly through Lipikar).
I am at the stage where I am going to launch my product and the scare of the big brands keeps me awake at nights. But you do what you got to do, right?
I wish you luck and success and I wish for BookEazy to see the light of the day again.
Hey, Thanks for your lovely message and kind words. Wish you the best with your product launch.
Well the service no doubt was a good one. But I would have really appreciated had the close down been more graceful. I opened an account in December last year and used your service just once and in 2008 due to my other commitments would not use it . But now when the service is closed I am being refunded just the deposit and not the advance service charges that I have paid.(I do understand as per term and conditions I am not entitled to that) But still I expected a better service in terms of refunds.
And this type of service is what makes people in India hesitant to go for any paid web based services from lesser know names and hence the poor penetration of such services in India. This was my try at a paid web-based service and I will definitely think a million times before signing up for such services in the future.It really lowers one’s confidence .
-Ravi
BookEazy was a nice place to book tickets. I liked it for its simlicity and ease of use.
But the fact is that it has been closed (I dont agree with the word “hibernate” as the ther servisces available on the sit are not of much use).
I also didnyt like theidea of not returning the regestration fees taken by the owners of the website. It was a complete loss for those who joined recently ( most peole fall in this category).
@ Ranveer, Ravi
You both are justified in asking for more support from our side. From our side, we are working hard to ensure you get the what ever is reasonably due.
I’m not sure if you both are aware, but we’ve sent notifications to all members on three different occasions starting October 1st of the service hibernation. Our aim was to alert members of the changes and provide alternatives/reimbursement methods etc. The notifications were sent out as soon as were certain of pressure from multiplexes became clear. Your feedback would have certainly been responded to a lot better at the time.
Besides the notifications, we’ve also made arrangements for you to claim discounts on your movie tickets. Several members have claimed these offers – notifications of these discounts were again sent out on October 1st. Ravi, correct me if I am wrong, you may have also gone ahead and claimed such an offer.
Finally, we’ve also provided for direct tele-booking to confirm your movie tickets, exclusively for BookEazy members to ease out any inconvenience and make your transition graceful. This service continues to exist as I write.
The team is working hard to ensure we preserve the goodwill and trust you guys have placed with us. Thank you for stopping by.
- Santosh
You had a great concept. I am really sad to see it close down. Now the sheer thought of having to drive all the way to esqaure, pay 40 bucks for parking and then come back empty handed is enough to scare off any movie plans.
Please be back with a bigger and better version soon!
Hi Saurabh,
Thank you for your comment, it was a hard decision for all of us as BookEazy really helped fill the same void your referring to in our own lives. We will be sure to ping you when we are ready to come back in.
~ Santosh
Hello BookEazy Team,
Your service was good, neat and effective. However there was this initial barrier of having to pay deposit amount for registration, which could not be paid online. When I had to use your site, I used to call up my friend who was member and had already paid this deposit.
I feel generally movie watching is an impulsive decision. Days of advance booking and planning for movies days before are almost gone. In such scenario, I don’t mind paying convenience fees to BookMyShow and other such services. Especially when online booking by theatres and multiplexes themselves sucks big time, and also because the various promotional offers BookMyShow offers on credit card transactions.
I understand that still very few people use credit card for online purchases, but it will have to change if e-commerce has to succeed in India. Any offline revenue models will need very strong distribution and collection network, which comes with additional cost.
It would be interesting to see what new model you guys come up with. All the best for it.
Hi Vibhushan,
Glad to know that you did use BookEazy, even if it was through a friend.
- Santosh
I agree with you Common sense isn’t common