Beyond Pricing & Airbnb

Several startups now offer tools that bring “Dynamic pricing” to Airbnb rentals.

When renting out rooms over online services like Airbnb, property owners can use tools like PriceLabs, Smart Host, and Beyond Pricing to automatically adjust prices according to supply, demand, and other market variables.

Beyond Pricing, which launched in early 2014, is now available in 26 cities, and according to Techcrunch, it controls $1 million worth of Airbnb bookings a week.

Today, their startup, the San Francisco-based PriceMethod, unveiled a new dynamic pricing tool for people who rent rooms over Airbnb and similar services.

The tool is just one of many supporting technologies that have sprung up around the so-called “Sharing economy.” With companies such as Airbnb and Uber offering popular smartphone apps that connect available rooms, rides, and other real world opportunities to people who need them, so many other companies are offering tools that seek to streamline these new markets.

Dynamic pricing is widely used in the hotel business.

When out-of-towners pour into a city for a conference, hotel owners will raise room prices.

When things slow down the off-season, they’ll lower price just enough to encourage new bookings.

According to Fraiman and Kitchell, this kind of thing is still far too rare in the world of Airbnb-despite the presence of tools such as Beyond Pricing.

Studying 367 hotels and over 5,500 peer-to-peer rentals in the San Francisco area, they found that pricing for hotels fluctuated wildly, while P2P rentals prices stayed rather flat.

According to their study, 60 percent of San Francisco P2P rentals maintained a single price for the year, and 80 percent used three or fewer prices per year.

Each day, the company considers billions of data points describing the market as a whole, and it layers on a number of other things that affect price, including the season, local events that can increase demand, and how far ahead someone is trying to book a room.

One tester, Carlos, says the tool has led to more bookings on at least some of his properties, and he plans to use it for all his properties in the future.

Airbnb did not respond to a request for comment on PriceMethod and similar tools.

(Credits to DAVEY ALBA)

The post Airbnb goes Dynamic Pricing appeared first on TalksFriendite.