Expedia.com: Dynamic Pricing

The company I chose to look at was Expedia, because they engage in dynamic pricing strategies. Much like all companies in the tourism business, Expedia offers flights, hotels, and travel accommodations with constantly changing prices. Depending on the time of year that you are travelling, how far in advance you are booking your itinerary, what options you are booking together, etc, you can spend on a wide sliding scale of prices.

For example, by booking a flight and hotel together, you will save as opposed to booking them separately. Also, price is affected by which airport you choose to fly out of, time of year, or even day of the week. You will pay more to fly on busier days and busier times of the year. By navigating through their website today, I noticed promotions for Spring Break and Easter deals. You also receive different price options based on rewards programs. As a member of the Expedia Elite Rewards Program, you are able to purchase flights and accommodations that earn you points towards offers and perks such as free merchandise, waived fees, and a priority customer service number.

As far as the products that Expedia offers goes, you can book flights, hotels, car rentals, activities, or cruises separately on the site, or combinations of the above. By searching specific dates and times based on the number of people travelling, you can compare prices on different airlines, hotels, etc. The site also offers the ability for user reviews, which is helpful when making a selection. They also feature a deals and offers section with highly discounted trips, etc. Searching through the site and these features is all completely free and does not require a user name or profile of any kind. A login is required once you are booking a trip, through which you later can track your itinerary and make future purchases.

In order to better see specific pricing differences, I did a search for a one week trip to Los Angeles. I compared the flight + hotel package options leaving from both Syracuse, and LaGuardia airports. I did the search for a Monday to Monday trip. Using the site’s navigational options, I sorted by price just to compare the lowest possible trip for each. All trip details were exactly the same except for departure airport.

Syracuse Package = Starting at $641 (with a $64 discount for booking flight and hotel together on Expedia)

LaGuardia Package = Starting at $610 (with the same discount)

I also ended up reading some user reviews for this trip, which included ratings of the specific hotels. The one I looked at, for example, had about a 3/5 star rating and many users wrote comments about how it was a little bit out of the way and would require expensive cab fare to get anywhere worth seeing.

In order to see differences in days of the week, I did a simple comparison of one way flights on different days. This time I looked at flights from Ithaca to Orlando, Fl.

Monday April 13 = 1 Stop US Airways for $255

Wednesday April 15 = 1 Stop US Airways for $93

Saturday April 18 = 1 Stop US Airways for $100

The pricing strategies of Expedia are perfect for a tourism based company. First of all, their services are expired immediately. If no one buys the seat on a specific flight, that revenue is lost forever. So by offering dynamic pricing based on factors such as time of year and day of the week, they are using a strategy that will promote travel and increase revenue based on very relevant factors. Their pricing strategies promote travel when it would usually be slow, and maximizes profits during periods when travel is highly expected. Also, by offering this dynamic pricing strategy, it allows users of their website to do research and price comparisons, making it more likely that they will choose one of the options for their accommodations. It also makes it much easier for people to do this, which promotes use of the site and repeat users.

Although the travel industry as a whole is struggling right now with the current economic situation, Expedia in the past has been extremely successful with its pricing strategies and remains a top name in the online travel booking world. Though their profit margin decreased in late 2008 and early 2009, they expect to increase revenue by focusing more on car rentals, travel insurance, and other products in addition to the traditional flight and hotel bookings. Although their shares dropped 33 cents over the past year, Expedia expects air fare revenue to increase in 2009 as flight bookings increased in both North America and Europe recently, helped by foreign currency exchange.

Target.com

After our talk about effective websites in Marketing on the Internet, and our work on Jenna's site for Venus, I thought about what some of the sites I find really effective are. I was thinking about how in terms of the Venus site, we are trying to include a lot of products but with easy navigation. This led me to think about Target's website because they offer so many products all over the map in a way that is easy to find or search.

The target site features the products split up by topic, then they are further broken down in to categories. You can also search broadly anything within the search box near the top. There are products from dvd movies to newborn clothing and everything in between. When searching within a category, there is a breadcrumb trail over the top to easily navigate back and always know where you are.

All products have multiple photos and close ups allowing for better understanding and view of what you are ordering. You also can roll over the products and see quick facts about them and order option details. I think it is a sight that Jenna and Venus can definitely take some ideas from!

Pure Play Business: Flickr.com

The pure play business that I decided to look is the popular photo sharing website Flickr.com. With over 3 billion images contributed by users, Flickr is popular for personal photo archiving as well as for finding images for blogs, etc. Photos are tagged with relevant words so they are easily searchable and thousands are uploaded every minute.

Flickr uses the creative commons licensing that we learned about earlier in the course, which allows for a broad range of options as far as sharing original photography goes. The site offers both public and private photo album options.

Here is a screen shot of my father's Flickr Photo Stream. He has almost 3,000 of his photos uploaded, and they are only sports shots of my brother and younger cousins!

The first business model that Flickr uses to generate revenue is the subscription model. Although there is the option of a free account, in order to be able to upload unlimited photos and take advantage of all of the features the site offers, users must pay a yearly fee to subscribe. There are different levels of accounts, but the most common are around $25 per year. By subscribing to the site, users fill out information which gives Flickr a huge database of people for marketing purposes.

The site also uses the community model by allowing users to upload, share, and tag their photos. Many users write small captions explaining their photos and can link them to a Flickr map. The map function allows users to share photos taken in similar places around the world with each other. The site connects people from different backgrounds and locations through common interests within their photos and albums. There is also the option of FlickrMail for users to send messages to one another on the site. Each person can also create a profile to accompany their photo streams.

For an example of using Flickr as a community tool, the following screen shot is one of the many pictures of my brother uploaded to my father's Flickr site. He also posts pictures from almost every game of the season. The players can then go to the site and download the pictures of themselves.

Flickr also is somewhat of an affiliate model and merchant model. By offering users to create and purchase products such as photo books, greeting cards, calendars, etc, with their photos, they are gaining revenue as a merchant. They also partner with other photo sites, such as Blub, MOO, and QOOP, to allow for the creation of these products. Because this most likely means that they are taking part in a revenue sharing process with these companies, they are acting as an affiliate model.

In order to measure performance, Flickr could first look to the number of subscriptions they are receiving. They can also measure how many people sign up for the higher levels of subscriptions after trying the free account. Growth in subscription base and number of photos uploaded would indicate how they are doing. Basic traffic measurements to the site are a good indicator of performance as well.

Sales numbers for the products offered also can be measured. These would reflect Flickr and the affiliate sites as well.

Overall, Flickr is a great community based web site that is completely pure play. It continues to grow in popularity and is becoming a household name. They offer a variety of products and services for their subscribers and seem to be doing very well as one of the top photo sharing websites available.

Joe Satriani vs Coldplay - Coincidence or Copywrite Infringement?

In what is probably the most publicized copy write lawsuit of the year, rock musician Joe Satriani sued the band Coldplay over their number one hit “Viva La Vida.” Satriani claims that the song copies his 2004 song “If I Could Fly,” which is an instrumental guitar track. The lawsuit, filed in December, will be heard in Los Angeles Federal Court as Satriani tries to prove that his original music was stolen without permission.

“Viva La Vida,” winner of Song of the Year at the Grammy awards, is an extremely successful song while “If I Could Fly” never made it big. This controversy, however, is gaining a lot of media attention, especially for not-so-famous Satriani. According to an article on NPR music, the YouTube video comparing the two tracks has had millions of visits. Although music copy write cases go way back, it is amazing to see how the internet can affect the way people talk about and respond to such an issue. Bloggers write about the details and their opinions on the case, people comment their own views, and sites like YouTube allow for an instant comparison between the tracks for anyone to hear. Before the internet, people would probably not have heard much about the case, or ever heard the lesser known song. Today, even if nothing comes out of the lawsuit, it has already circulated the Joe Satriani name and music among millions of people all over the world.

Because I was not familiar with “If I Could Fly,” I became one of the million people to check out the YouTube video. There were several comparing the two. This first one I thought was helpful because it broke it down technically in terms of chords and keys, etc. Though I don’t know much about music, it seems as though this guy knows what he is talking about. In the second video of the series, he explains his music background. It is also interesting his findings during his research that music infringement cases are very hard to prove and rarely go anywhere.

Here are the two videos:

This third one I thought was amazing because using digital remixing, a YouTube user was able to superimpose the Coldplay lyrics on to the Satriani song for the ultimate comparison. Check it out and decide for yourself:

Although the two songs do sound very similar (and are the exact same tempo), it will be interesting to see how the lawsuit plays out. Coldplay did not pay any royalties or get permission to use Satriani’s track, and there are rumors going around that he tried to contact them multiple times over the issue without success. Now Satriani wants all of the profits connected with the song “Viva La Vida.” Coldplay of course claims that any similarities between the two songs are completely coincidental. There were even media stories that Satriani may try to serve the lawsuit papers to the band at the Grammy Awards. This did not happen as Chris Martin’s lawyers accepted the documents on behalf of the group.

As far as defenses go for Coldplay, there really is no way that they could try and argue Fair Use. The song certainly was not a parody, it earned the band huge commercial profits, and even if only a portion of the song was used, it could be argued to have caused Satriani major lost revenues. It seems the best bet for Coldplay is to continue to stick by their argument of pure coincidence. Satriani’s legal team claims that the band used significant portions of original music in this case, which if it is proven true in court will leave Coldplay owing Satriani a lot of money. Satriani says, however, that for him it isn’t about getting the money from Coldplay but about protecting his intellectual property that took him almost ten years to write. He supposedly tried to handle the situation without a lawsuit but was left with no choice when Coldplay refused to speak with him about it. It is hard to know what is true and what is not, but this is the stance he has taken in the media since the whole thing started. The song, written for his wife, is one that means a lot to him and he won’t give up the fight to protect what he truly believes is his own work.

Coldplay has been very quiet in talking about the issue, but has made public statements saying that they respect Joe Satriani as a musician, but did not copy his melody.

Case #1: Mass Customization

Both the NikeID and Puma Mongolian Shoe BBQ sites are extremely interactive and great examples of mass customization. They both have flash designed websites that are appealing to the eye and engage the customer to look around. You can tell right away that the Nike site has a very athletic appeal, where the Puma site is a bit more style driven with the play on a restaurant theme. I enjoyed visiting both sites and I think they offer a unique experience that will intrigue customers. Both offer basic shoe designs that can be customized to the consumer’s taste.




Check out the
Nike Shox Navina+ iD Women’s Running Shoe
I designed at NIKEiD.com


From just exploring the NikeID site I noticed that they have a large variety of styles to choose from and customize. They also offered equipment and clothing as well. As a customer I was somewhat overwhelmed at first as they offered so many choices, but I ended up spending a lot of time on the site looking around and finding the products that I liked the best. In my personal opinion, after searching through both sites, I enjoyed Nike’s site better because the styles were more my taste and because I had so many options. I also personally enjoyed their choices for color changes better than Puma’s. I thought that it was extremely clever to use the “my locker” feature to save your designs because it provides a great way to build a database of customers for marketing purposes while allowing people to save and share their designs.

I did feel, however, that the Puma site was a little bit more straight forward to use. They don’t offer as many options as Nike, but for some customers that may be a plus and less intimidating. I did think it was interesting that Puma offered different texture options as well as just colors, however I was frustrated that I couldn’t change the colors on as much of the shoe as I could on most of Nike’s. I also thought it was easier to get started with the Puma site. I did, however, experience some difficulties loading their site in the middle of my design process, which could definitely negatively affect the consumer experience. It even made me jump back to the Nike site instead of continuously waiting for Puma’s to load. Once I was patient enough to sit down and wait for the site and actually design some shoes, I tried a couple of options but never saved any. I didn’t even like one enough to post a picture on to my blog.


What I think is especially great about these two websites is that they are very much designed for different types of consumers, offering the option of customization to a wide variety of people. While athletes are more likely to use NikeID, Puma is probably a better option for individuals looking to make a statement with their shoes. I thought it was great on both sites that they each offered the option to look at what other people had created. I enjoyed looking at other people’s designs just to see how similar they were to my own and to get inspiration for new designs. Another aspect of both sites that I thought was great was the option to customize a shoe in a store as well, rather than just on the internet. I thought this was a good idea for customers who are maybe worried that they aren’t getting an accurate picture of what their sneaker will look like from the online images, or for people who enjoy getting feedback from a salesperson who can help them face to face. I personally also know certain people, such as my grandparents, which are too nervous to put their credit card info online or to shop online at all. This gives them the option to get ideas from online but actually customize their sneaker in a store.


I personally thought it was really interesting to compare these two websites and to think about how different this process would have been just a few years ago. People our age probably take for granted all the options they have for mass customization or even just shopping online in general. Overall, though I thought both sites were extremely creative, I enjoyed the NikeID site the best and feel as though they use technology more efficiently to offer mass customization.