Cup and Pillow--The Bed & Breakfast List.com - FEATURES

[JunieBJones (JBJ)]

I would like to invite Read from The Bed and Breakfast List.com to share more on this website and all it's features.
I know you have a page for innkeepers with info - so if you want to cut n paste sections that we can ask about. What I saw were the comments about letting this website be the total shebang, so to speak, booking agent and guest mgmt. Is this correct? I really like the bed bid section - but am wondering how are you being found online? Is it a link from MY website? Would that not be self defeating as I already have my "rack rates" and discounts on offer on my website? How does the booking agent work? I am waiting for the key/access code to preview it.
Thank you.
(I am sorry if this was posted elsewhere, I wanted a new thread as we did with RezOvation).

 

[readspear]

Hi JunieBJones,
No problem, I'm delighted that you are interested in my site and just as pleased to write about it. Yes, we are the first to offer fully integrated (i.e., nothing to download or install) front and back applications. What you see in the marketplace are sites that offer listings (lots of those), one or two that provide the ability to take bookings online or manage guest information and that's about it. We are putting all of this together in one place--a collection of web apps that can do it all. Since every piece of our code has been written from scratch it is all tightly integrated, but since it was designed by us it is highly extensible. So if we start getting requests from innkeepers that they want a certain function we can have that written, tested and up within days. We advertise like everyone else--Google, Yahoo, etc and we have an SEO guru who works to keep the site's organic placement climbing, so as people begin to adopt that will only get better. One thing you could do with it, if you wanted to, is to link to your booking calendar page on our site (which Preferred Members have) from your site to take your guest's reservation and money. We don't take a percentage of your booking and the Preferred Listing is soon to be priced at $9.95/mo, so that's pretty inexpensive for a booking calendar and listing. We do take $4.99 from the booking party because we intend to use this to set up and reward affiliates in order to drive traffic to the site. So that's the basics. Perhaps a better link is our FAQ which explains the marketing strategy behind the site: http://www.thebedandbreakfastlist.com/prod/footer/faq#anchor2
Best,
Read

 

[EmptyNest]

Hi JunieBJones,
No problem, I'm delighted that you are interested in my site and just as pleased to write about it. Yes, we are the first to offer fully integrated (i.e., nothing to download or install) front and back applications. What you see in the marketplace are sites that offer listings (lots of those), one or two that provide the ability to take bookings online or manage guest information and that's about it. We are putting all of this together in one place--a collection of web apps that can do it all. Since every piece of our code has been written from scratch it is all tightly integrated, but since it was designed by us it is highly extensible. So if we start getting requests from innkeepers that they want a certain function we can have that written, tested and up within days. We advertise like everyone else--Google, Yahoo, etc and we have an SEO guru who works to keep the site's organic placement climbing, so as people begin to adopt that will only get better. One thing you could do with it, if you wanted to, is to link to your booking calendar page on our site (which Preferred Members have) from your site to take your guest's reservation and money. We don't take a percentage of your booking and the Preferred Listing is soon to be priced at $9.95/mo, so that's pretty inexpensive for a booking calendar and listing. We do take $4.99 from the booking party because we intend to use this to set up and reward affiliates in order to drive traffic to the site. So that's the basics. Perhaps a better link is our FAQ which explains the marketing strategy behind the site: http://www.thebedandbreakfastlist.com/prod/footer/faq#anchor2
Best,
Read.

Are you planning to be a vendor at the Mid Atlantic Conference? I am sure folks would love to hear about this directly from you.

 

[readspear]

Hi catlady!
We would love to be there and we're going to try, however with our launch taking up most of our time there's a chance we may not be able to work it out. I would say that our intentions are 100%, but the exigencies of doing this launch have us running in circles. My partner, Robert Seiling, and I would prefer to be there personally rather than send reps.
Read

 

[EmptyNest]

Hi catlady!
We would love to be there and we're going to try, however with our launch taking up most of our time there's a chance we may not be able to work it out. I would say that our intentions are 100%, but the exigencies of doing this launch have us running in circles. My partner, Robert Seiling, and I would prefer to be there personally rather than send reps.
Read.

Well we would love to have you, but reps are fine..as long as someone comes to show folks what new alternative is out there. I know there is lots of curiosity.

 

[readspear]

We're going to try to make it. The problem with being a perfectionist is that you tend to want to do it all yourself, so it's me and my partner or nobody! Thank you for your enthusiasm, though, it is appreciated.
R

 

[Morticia]

We're going to try to make it. The problem with being a perfectionist is that you tend to want to do it all yourself, so it's me and my partner or nobody! Thank you for your enthusiasm, though, it is appreciated.
R.

We're going to try to make it. The problem with being a perfectionist is that you tend to want to do it all yourself, so it's me and my partner or nobody! Thank you for your enthusiasm, though, it is appreciated.
R

All of us here know what you mean. Few of us leave our 'babies' with anyone else when we go away. However, to be successful, you are going to need to let go of something...either the development work or the meet and greet. You can't sell the idea if you never get out of the office and you can't build it if you're always on the road. So, take a page from the book of the guy who just sold Webervations because he could no longer run it on his own...hire trustworthy help and do what you're best at...selling or developing.
Perfection is a trap. Highly successful people are not perfect. But they are brilliant at what they do best and they let other brilliant people do the rest.

 

[readspear]

We're going to try to make it. The problem with being a perfectionist is that you tend to want to do it all yourself, so it's me and my partner or nobody! Thank you for your enthusiasm, though, it is appreciated.
R.

We're going to try to make it. The problem with being a perfectionist is that you tend to want to do it all yourself, so it's me and my partner or nobody! Thank you for your enthusiasm, though, it is appreciated.
R

All of us here know what you mean. Few of us leave our 'babies' with anyone else when we go away. However, to be successful, you are going to need to let go of something...either the development work or the meet and greet. You can't sell the idea if you never get out of the office and you can't build it if you're always on the road. So, take a page from the book of the guy who just sold Webervations because he could no longer run it on his own...hire trustworthy help and do what you're best at...selling or developing.
Perfection is a trap. Highly successful people are not perfect. But they are brilliant at what they do best and they let other brilliant people do the rest.
.

Good advice, to be sure!
R

 

[swirt]

Hi JunieBJones,
No problem, I'm delighted that you are interested in my site and just as pleased to write about it. Yes, we are the first to offer fully integrated (i.e., nothing to download or install) front and back applications. What you see in the marketplace are sites that offer listings (lots of those), one or two that provide the ability to take bookings online or manage guest information and that's about it. We are putting all of this together in one place--a collection of web apps that can do it all. Since every piece of our code has been written from scratch it is all tightly integrated, but since it was designed by us it is highly extensible. So if we start getting requests from innkeepers that they want a certain function we can have that written, tested and up within days. We advertise like everyone else--Google, Yahoo, etc and we have an SEO guru who works to keep the site's organic placement climbing, so as people begin to adopt that will only get better. One thing you could do with it, if you wanted to, is to link to your booking calendar page on our site (which Preferred Members have) from your site to take your guest's reservation and money. We don't take a percentage of your booking and the Preferred Listing is soon to be priced at $9.95/mo, so that's pretty inexpensive for a booking calendar and listing. We do take $4.99 from the booking party because we intend to use this to set up and reward affiliates in order to drive traffic to the site. So that's the basics. Perhaps a better link is our FAQ which explains the marketing strategy behind the site: http://www.thebedandbreakfastlist.com/prod/footer/faq#anchor2
Best,
Read.

We do take $4.99 from the booking party because we intend to use this to set up and reward affiliates in order to drive traffic to the site.

This fee is per transaction? The wording makes it sound like it is added as a fee to the person booking in addition to your rate. Am I reading that correctly?
So if my rate is $200 per night and if they book a room for a night, your system will charge them $204.99 plus whatever taxes apply?

 

[user 26]

well, i have a question about the map feature. because my little place is at the end of the earth with a street address that the post office does not get mail delivered to (we all have to go to the post office around here) we do not show up on gps systems and mapping features. i guess that is why my locale is shown on your map as the middle of the ocean.
talk about frustrating!
pillows and pancakes (the FIRST online place to show us in our actual location on the map) had us zero in with their map and provide latitude and longitude so they got us right. i repeatedly supplied this info to google maps, etc. until they got it right (thank you pillows and pancakes!) can i supply cup and pillow with that info so YOU can find us, too?

 

[readspear]

Hi JunieBJones,
No problem, I'm delighted that you are interested in my site and just as pleased to write about it. Yes, we are the first to offer fully integrated (i.e., nothing to download or install) front and back applications. What you see in the marketplace are sites that offer listings (lots of those), one or two that provide the ability to take bookings online or manage guest information and that's about it. We are putting all of this together in one place--a collection of web apps that can do it all. Since every piece of our code has been written from scratch it is all tightly integrated, but since it was designed by us it is highly extensible. So if we start getting requests from innkeepers that they want a certain function we can have that written, tested and up within days. We advertise like everyone else--Google, Yahoo, etc and we have an SEO guru who works to keep the site's organic placement climbing, so as people begin to adopt that will only get better. One thing you could do with it, if you wanted to, is to link to your booking calendar page on our site (which Preferred Members have) from your site to take your guest's reservation and money. We don't take a percentage of your booking and the Preferred Listing is soon to be priced at $9.95/mo, so that's pretty inexpensive for a booking calendar and listing. We do take $4.99 from the booking party because we intend to use this to set up and reward affiliates in order to drive traffic to the site. So that's the basics. Perhaps a better link is our FAQ which explains the marketing strategy behind the site: http://www.thebedandbreakfastlist.com/prod/footer/faq#anchor2
Best,
Read.

We do take $4.99 from the booking party because we intend to use this to set up and reward affiliates in order to drive traffic to the site.

This fee is per transaction? The wording makes it sound like it is added as a fee to the person booking in addition to your rate. Am I reading that correctly?
So if my rate is $200 per night and if they book a room for a night, your system will charge them $204.99 plus whatever taxes apply?
.

Hi swirt,
Yep, you've got it right. It's per transaction, not per night. To use your example if someone booked for 3 nights the system would bill $600 (plus applicable taxes) which would go directly to your Auth.net account (we don't stand in the middle, we only facilitate the transaction--IOW, your guests' money goes directly to you, not through us first) and $4.99 to our Auth.net account. If the guest came through an affiliate, all or a portion of that $4.99 goes to the affiliate (depends on what I was able to negotiate).
R

 

[swirt]

Hi JunieBJones,
No problem, I'm delighted that you are interested in my site and just as pleased to write about it. Yes, we are the first to offer fully integrated (i.e., nothing to download or install) front and back applications. What you see in the marketplace are sites that offer listings (lots of those), one or two that provide the ability to take bookings online or manage guest information and that's about it. We are putting all of this together in one place--a collection of web apps that can do it all. Since every piece of our code has been written from scratch it is all tightly integrated, but since it was designed by us it is highly extensible. So if we start getting requests from innkeepers that they want a certain function we can have that written, tested and up within days. We advertise like everyone else--Google, Yahoo, etc and we have an SEO guru who works to keep the site's organic placement climbing, so as people begin to adopt that will only get better. One thing you could do with it, if you wanted to, is to link to your booking calendar page on our site (which Preferred Members have) from your site to take your guest's reservation and money. We don't take a percentage of your booking and the Preferred Listing is soon to be priced at $9.95/mo, so that's pretty inexpensive for a booking calendar and listing. We do take $4.99 from the booking party because we intend to use this to set up and reward affiliates in order to drive traffic to the site. So that's the basics. Perhaps a better link is our FAQ which explains the marketing strategy behind the site: http://www.thebedandbreakfastlist.com/prod/footer/faq#anchor2
Best,
Read.

We do take $4.99 from the booking party because we intend to use this to set up and reward affiliates in order to drive traffic to the site.

This fee is per transaction? The wording makes it sound like it is added as a fee to the person booking in addition to your rate. Am I reading that correctly?
So if my rate is $200 per night and if they book a room for a night, your system will charge them $204.99 plus whatever taxes apply?
.

Hi swirt,
Yep, you've got it right. It's per transaction, not per night. To use your example if someone booked for 3 nights the system would bill $600 (plus applicable taxes) which would go directly to your Auth.net account (we don't stand in the middle, we only facilitate the transaction--IOW, your guests' money goes directly to you, not through us first) and $4.99 to our Auth.net account. If the guest came through an affiliate, all or a portion of that $4.99 goes to the affiliate (depends on what I was able to negotiate).
R
.

Thanks Read,
That's an interesting funding idea. Who are you considering as your primary source for affiliates?
Do you think it will be a draw for travellers to use a site knowing that by using it they are paying $5 more than if they used some other site? I can see where some would want to use it to take advantage of the bid a bed, but I can't see a lot of the internet mentality of faster and cheaper going for the idea of paying a higher rate.
Inns using you as their only booking and payment engine would have to lower their rates by $5 to remain competitive with other inns using the already established technology. I can see why you wouldn't want to just charge the inn $5 per transaction as that would end up being pretty costly over the long term and they probably wouldn't go for it. Passing the transaction fee on to the guest sounds at first glance like it would be more palatable, but there is no nice way to charge that without it ultimately either being held against your site, or the inn. How do you plan to pitch this fee to the end user (potential guests)?

 

[readspear]

Hi JunieBJones,
No problem, I'm delighted that you are interested in my site and just as pleased to write about it. Yes, we are the first to offer fully integrated (i.e., nothing to download or install) front and back applications. What you see in the marketplace are sites that offer listings (lots of those), one or two that provide the ability to take bookings online or manage guest information and that's about it. We are putting all of this together in one place--a collection of web apps that can do it all. Since every piece of our code has been written from scratch it is all tightly integrated, but since it was designed by us it is highly extensible. So if we start getting requests from innkeepers that they want a certain function we can have that written, tested and up within days. We advertise like everyone else--Google, Yahoo, etc and we have an SEO guru who works to keep the site's organic placement climbing, so as people begin to adopt that will only get better. One thing you could do with it, if you wanted to, is to link to your booking calendar page on our site (which Preferred Members have) from your site to take your guest's reservation and money. We don't take a percentage of your booking and the Preferred Listing is soon to be priced at $9.95/mo, so that's pretty inexpensive for a booking calendar and listing. We do take $4.99 from the booking party because we intend to use this to set up and reward affiliates in order to drive traffic to the site. So that's the basics. Perhaps a better link is our FAQ which explains the marketing strategy behind the site: http://www.thebedandbreakfastlist.com/prod/footer/faq#anchor2
Best,
Read.

We do take $4.99 from the booking party because we intend to use this to set up and reward affiliates in order to drive traffic to the site.

This fee is per transaction? The wording makes it sound like it is added as a fee to the person booking in addition to your rate. Am I reading that correctly?
So if my rate is $200 per night and if they book a room for a night, your system will charge them $204.99 plus whatever taxes apply?
.

Hi swirt,
Yep, you've got it right. It's per transaction, not per night. To use your example if someone booked for 3 nights the system would bill $600 (plus applicable taxes) which would go directly to your Auth.net account (we don't stand in the middle, we only facilitate the transaction--IOW, your guests' money goes directly to you, not through us first) and $4.99 to our Auth.net account. If the guest came through an affiliate, all or a portion of that $4.99 goes to the affiliate (depends on what I was able to negotiate).
R
.

Thanks Read,
That's an interesting funding idea. Who are you considering as your primary source for affiliates?
Do you think it will be a draw for travellers to use a site knowing that by using it they are paying $5 more than if they used some other site? I can see where some would want to use it to take advantage of the bid a bed, but I can't see a lot of the internet mentality of faster and cheaper going for the idea of paying a higher rate.
Inns using you as their only booking and payment engine would have to lower their rates by $5 to remain competitive with other inns using the already established technology. I can see why you wouldn't want to just charge the inn $5 per transaction as that would end up being pretty costly over the long term and they probably wouldn't go for it. Passing the transaction fee on to the guest sounds at first glance like it would be more palatable, but there is no nice way to charge that without it ultimately either being held against your site, or the inn. How do you plan to pitch this fee to the end user (potential guests)?
.

swirt,
You bring up a good point. We put a lot of thought into this and we believe (with good marketplace evidence) that the $4.99 is not a significant hurdle. Orbitz and Travelocity both charge a similar fee, the difference being that theirs' are higher. That's just the cost of convenience shopping. Though we would love for our members to offer discounts, the innkeeper doesn't need to worry inordinately about this for not only the reason I gave above (facilitation fees are already accepted practice), but because we post your phone number, website and have an email submission form so it's very easy to bypass if the guest is highly motivated to save the $4.99. Another draw for the customer to stay online is that we offer a great organizing tool for them which we call HomeBase. Their reservations are entered into the HomeBase trip planning software automatically when they book online. They can add all other aspects of their trip to it as well, so they don't need to carry a laptop if they'd prefer to travel light. (I love traveling light and designed this after having lost one too many printouts of my itinerary in Latin America.) We have a lot of other great features and useful tools for guests. I hope that addresses your concern.
As for affiliates we have lots of ideas and one really fantastic deal we're about to close that will put our innkeeper members in front of a great demographic. As the deal is still in its early stages I cannot say much more about it, but believe me, nobody else has or will have this.
R

 

[readspear]

well, i have a question about the map feature. because my little place is at the end of the earth with a street address that the post office does not get mail delivered to (we all have to go to the post office around here) we do not show up on gps systems and mapping features. i guess that is why my locale is shown on your map as the middle of the ocean.
talk about frustrating!
pillows and pancakes (the FIRST online place to show us in our actual location on the map) had us zero in with their map and provide latitude and longitude so they got us right. i repeatedly supplied this info to google maps, etc. until they got it right (thank you pillows and pancakes!) can i supply cup and pillow with that info so YOU can find us, too?.

Our geocoding pulls from Google. If you are showing up in the middle of the ocean it is probably because the default coordinates are 0 deg lat, 0 deg long which is off the west coast of Africa. I have no doubts that we can accommodate you.
R

 

[Morticia]

Hi JunieBJones,
No problem, I'm delighted that you are interested in my site and just as pleased to write about it. Yes, we are the first to offer fully integrated (i.e., nothing to download or install) front and back applications. What you see in the marketplace are sites that offer listings (lots of those), one or two that provide the ability to take bookings online or manage guest information and that's about it. We are putting all of this together in one place--a collection of web apps that can do it all. Since every piece of our code has been written from scratch it is all tightly integrated, but since it was designed by us it is highly extensible. So if we start getting requests from innkeepers that they want a certain function we can have that written, tested and up within days. We advertise like everyone else--Google, Yahoo, etc and we have an SEO guru who works to keep the site's organic placement climbing, so as people begin to adopt that will only get better. One thing you could do with it, if you wanted to, is to link to your booking calendar page on our site (which Preferred Members have) from your site to take your guest's reservation and money. We don't take a percentage of your booking and the Preferred Listing is soon to be priced at $9.95/mo, so that's pretty inexpensive for a booking calendar and listing. We do take $4.99 from the booking party because we intend to use this to set up and reward affiliates in order to drive traffic to the site. So that's the basics. Perhaps a better link is our FAQ which explains the marketing strategy behind the site: http://www.thebedandbreakfastlist.com/prod/footer/faq#anchor2
Best,
Read.

We do take $4.99 from the booking party because we intend to use this to set up and reward affiliates in order to drive traffic to the site.

This fee is per transaction? The wording makes it sound like it is added as a fee to the person booking in addition to your rate. Am I reading that correctly?
So if my rate is $200 per night and if they book a room for a night, your system will charge them $204.99 plus whatever taxes apply?
.

Hi swirt,
Yep, you've got it right. It's per transaction, not per night. To use your example if someone booked for 3 nights the system would bill $600 (plus applicable taxes) which would go directly to your Auth.net account (we don't stand in the middle, we only facilitate the transaction--IOW, your guests' money goes directly to you, not through us first) and $4.99 to our Auth.net account. If the guest came through an affiliate, all or a portion of that $4.99 goes to the affiliate (depends on what I was able to negotiate).
R
.

Hi swirt,
Yep, you've got it right. It's per transaction, not per night. To use your example if someone booked for 3 nights the system would bill $600 (plus applicable taxes) which would go directly to your Auth.net account (we don't stand in the middle, we only facilitate the transaction--IOW, your guests' money goes directly to you, not through us first) and $4.99 to our Auth.net account. If the guest came through an affiliate, all or a portion of that $4.99 goes to the affiliate (depends on what I was able to negotiate).
R

Having affiliates...does this mean ads on your website? That's something we have discussed quite a bit here and it's something we do not like. Mostly because the ads that show are for some competing inn or location. If I put in my town, state (as an example) the ads that show up on Google are for competing towns in my state.

 

[JunieBJones (JBJ)]

I didn't even know the others like expedia were charging a fee to the user. I wonder if most people don't know? They boast the lowest rates and I have gone straight to a website directly and found it lower, every time.

 

[Morticia]

I didn't even know the others like expedia were charging a fee to the user. I wonder if most people don't know? They boast the lowest rates and I have gone straight to a website directly and found it lower, every time..

I didn't even know the others like expedia were charging a fee to the user. I wonder if most people don't know? They boast the lowest rates and I have gone straight to a website directly and found it lower, every time.

Quote from their site, altho it does not give $ or % amount:
"The room rate displayed on the Website is a combination of the pre-negotiated room rate for rooms reserved on your behalf by Expedia and the facilitation fee retained by Expedia to compensate us for our services."

 

[readspear]

Hi JunieBJones,
No problem, I'm delighted that you are interested in my site and just as pleased to write about it. Yes, we are the first to offer fully integrated (i.e., nothing to download or install) front and back applications. What you see in the marketplace are sites that offer listings (lots of those), one or two that provide the ability to take bookings online or manage guest information and that's about it. We are putting all of this together in one place--a collection of web apps that can do it all. Since every piece of our code has been written from scratch it is all tightly integrated, but since it was designed by us it is highly extensible. So if we start getting requests from innkeepers that they want a certain function we can have that written, tested and up within days. We advertise like everyone else--Google, Yahoo, etc and we have an SEO guru who works to keep the site's organic placement climbing, so as people begin to adopt that will only get better. One thing you could do with it, if you wanted to, is to link to your booking calendar page on our site (which Preferred Members have) from your site to take your guest's reservation and money. We don't take a percentage of your booking and the Preferred Listing is soon to be priced at $9.95/mo, so that's pretty inexpensive for a booking calendar and listing. We do take $4.99 from the booking party because we intend to use this to set up and reward affiliates in order to drive traffic to the site. So that's the basics. Perhaps a better link is our FAQ which explains the marketing strategy behind the site: http://www.thebedandbreakfastlist.com/prod/footer/faq#anchor2
Best,
Read.

We do take $4.99 from the booking party because we intend to use this to set up and reward affiliates in order to drive traffic to the site.

This fee is per transaction? The wording makes it sound like it is added as a fee to the person booking in addition to your rate. Am I reading that correctly?
So if my rate is $200 per night and if they book a room for a night, your system will charge them $204.99 plus whatever taxes apply?
.

Hi swirt,
Yep, you've got it right. It's per transaction, not per night. To use your example if someone booked for 3 nights the system would bill $600 (plus applicable taxes) which would go directly to your Auth.net account (we don't stand in the middle, we only facilitate the transaction--IOW, your guests' money goes directly to you, not through us first) and $4.99 to our Auth.net account. If the guest came through an affiliate, all or a portion of that $4.99 goes to the affiliate (depends on what I was able to negotiate).
R
.

Hi swirt,
Yep, you've got it right. It's per transaction, not per night. To use your example if someone booked for 3 nights the system would bill $600 (plus applicable taxes) which would go directly to your Auth.net account (we don't stand in the middle, we only facilitate the transaction--IOW, your guests' money goes directly to you, not through us first) and $4.99 to our Auth.net account. If the guest came through an affiliate, all or a portion of that $4.99 goes to the affiliate (depends on what I was able to negotiate).
R

Having affiliates...does this mean ads on your website? That's something we have discussed quite a bit here and it's something we do not like. Mostly because the ads that show are for some competing inn or location. If I put in my town, state (as an example) the ads that show up on Google are for competing towns in my state.
.

No, we don't do ads. I've been in web commerce since 1997 and never run an ad. Ads take traffic away from a site, just the opposite of what you want. An ad says, "our main line of business isn't working well enough so we're grabbing what we can". (I have a screen shot of one of my competitors advertising Best Western Hotels on their site. I couldn't believe my eyes.) You could run an ad on your web site for other inns *outside* of your area. That wouldn't hurt your business (and in fact would help the B&B industry), but for us to distract users with unrelated offers makes no sense. We may, down the road, offer complimentary products post-check-out, for example, rental cars or dinner reservations, because that makes the site more sticky, but nothing that would be counter productive to the main line of business.
R

 

[EmptyNest]

Hi JunieBJones,
No problem, I'm delighted that you are interested in my site and just as pleased to write about it. Yes, we are the first to offer fully integrated (i.e., nothing to download or install) front and back applications. What you see in the marketplace are sites that offer listings (lots of those), one or two that provide the ability to take bookings online or manage guest information and that's about it. We are putting all of this together in one place--a collection of web apps that can do it all. Since every piece of our code has been written from scratch it is all tightly integrated, but since it was designed by us it is highly extensible. So if we start getting requests from innkeepers that they want a certain function we can have that written, tested and up within days. We advertise like everyone else--Google, Yahoo, etc and we have an SEO guru who works to keep the site's organic placement climbing, so as people begin to adopt that will only get better. One thing you could do with it, if you wanted to, is to link to your booking calendar page on our site (which Preferred Members have) from your site to take your guest's reservation and money. We don't take a percentage of your booking and the Preferred Listing is soon to be priced at $9.95/mo, so that's pretty inexpensive for a booking calendar and listing. We do take $4.99 from the booking party because we intend to use this to set up and reward affiliates in order to drive traffic to the site. So that's the basics. Perhaps a better link is our FAQ which explains the marketing strategy behind the site: http://www.thebedandbreakfastlist.com/prod/footer/faq#anchor2
Best,
Read.

We do take $4.99 from the booking party because we intend to use this to set up and reward affiliates in order to drive traffic to the site.

This fee is per transaction? The wording makes it sound like it is added as a fee to the person booking in addition to your rate. Am I reading that correctly?
So if my rate is $200 per night and if they book a room for a night, your system will charge them $204.99 plus whatever taxes apply?
.

Hi swirt,
Yep, you've got it right. It's per transaction, not per night. To use your example if someone booked for 3 nights the system would bill $600 (plus applicable taxes) which would go directly to your Auth.net account (we don't stand in the middle, we only facilitate the transaction--IOW, your guests' money goes directly to you, not through us first) and $4.99 to our Auth.net account. If the guest came through an affiliate, all or a portion of that $4.99 goes to the affiliate (depends on what I was able to negotiate).
R
.

Hi swirt,
Yep, you've got it right. It's per transaction, not per night. To use your example if someone booked for 3 nights the system would bill $600 (plus applicable taxes) which would go directly to your Auth.net account (we don't stand in the middle, we only facilitate the transaction--IOW, your guests' money goes directly to you, not through us first) and $4.99 to our Auth.net account. If the guest came through an affiliate, all or a portion of that $4.99 goes to the affiliate (depends on what I was able to negotiate).
R

Having affiliates...does this mean ads on your website? That's something we have discussed quite a bit here and it's something we do not like. Mostly because the ads that show are for some competing inn or location. If I put in my town, state (as an example) the ads that show up on Google are for competing towns in my state.
.

No, we don't do ads. I've been in web commerce since 1997 and never run an ad. Ads take traffic away from a site, just the opposite of what you want. An ad says, "our main line of business isn't working well enough so we're grabbing what we can". (I have a screen shot of one of my competitors advertising Best Western Hotels on their site. I couldn't believe my eyes.) You could run an ad on your web site for other inns *outside* of your area. That wouldn't hurt your business (and in fact would help the B&B industry), but for us to distract users with unrelated offers makes no sense. We may, down the road, offer complimentary products post-check-out, for example, rental cars or dinner reservations, because that makes the site more sticky, but nothing that would be counter productive to the main line of business.
R
.

Hallejulia!!!! Someone who seems to understand..a B & B site should promote it's clients. And, not show links to competitors...this sounds better all the time.
I just wish your site had a little bit different look because it does resemble the competiton a bit:-(

 

[readspear]

well, i have a question about the map feature. because my little place is at the end of the earth with a street address that the post office does not get mail delivered to (we all have to go to the post office around here) we do not show up on gps systems and mapping features. i guess that is why my locale is shown on your map as the middle of the ocean.
talk about frustrating!
pillows and pancakes (the FIRST online place to show us in our actual location on the map) had us zero in with their map and provide latitude and longitude so they got us right. i repeatedly supplied this info to google maps, etc. until they got it right (thank you pillows and pancakes!) can i supply cup and pillow with that info so YOU can find us, too?.

Hi seashanty!
Would you please supply me with the latitude and longitude and the name of your Inn so that we can post your correct location? My tech dept. is working on mapping today. You can email me directly at [email protected].
Thank you,
R