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Strategies & Market Trends : Anthony @ Equity Investigations, Dear Anthony, -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kevin Podsiadlik who wrote (59667)	9/27/2000 9:26:58 PM
From: StockDung	Respond to of 122087

Quote of the day; ``Today, you can name your own price for Priceline,'' said Mark Brinkley, a trader at hedge fund Red Wolf Capital Management.

To: Kevin Podsiadlik who wrote (59667)	9/27/2000 9:35:21 PM
From: StockDung	Respond to of 122087

Beam me up Scotty-->BBB Won't Stamp Priceline's Ticket By Owen Thomas , September 22, 2000 The consumer watchdog organization says the name-your-own-price vendor hasn't resolved the underlying causes of customer complaints. We told you so. In eCompany Now's debut issue, senior writer Josh McHugh and senior editor Tim Carvell compared Priceline and Expedia for a quick trip to Mount Rushmore. After naming his own price, McHugh found himself booked on an early-morning flight to Casper, Wyo. -- 300-plus miles from his destination. He became a dissatisfied Priceline customer that weekend. He was far from alone, as it turns out. Last week, Priceline got its knuckles rapped by the Better Business Bureau -- the second time in three months. While the BBB had raised concerns in June about some 300 customer complaints filed against the company, this time the organization meant business: As of Sept. 14, Priceline was no longer a BBB member in good standing because of lingering customer complaints. Why the complaints? TV viewers got a sampling last night on CBS's 48 Hours. Most problems had to do with the company's name-your-own-price offering, where travelers bid on a ticket and Priceline sees if one of its airline partners can provide it. The conditions are strict: The traveler can't pick the airline, time, or even the specific airport, and sales are final. Priceline spokesman Brian Ek, of course, declares that the company is "customer-centric." Certainly, with 7 million people bidding on tickets and other goods since the site opened its doors in March 1998, it has managed to bring some people through the doors. (Some credit for this should go to William Shatner -- who, by the way, told CBS he had never used the service to buy a ticket.) To get an explanation for Priceline's recent woes, though, you have to understand who the company's real customers are. For air tickets, the company serves airlines, not travelers, first: Through Priceline, airlines get to dump unwanted seats on unsuspecting users, who end up with odd routings, long layovers, and surly customer service from airline employees, who know they bought cheap tickets and hardly rush to rebook them when flights are delayed. For people who don't grasp Priceline's model and end up with tickets they don't want or can't use, there's no wiggle room; the 48 Hours report documented the stonewall befuddled bidders get. But Priceline founder Jay Walker put the customer-surly value proposition of Priceline best: We don't give you the best price, he once told a reporter -- but it's your price. In facing a wave of customer complaints, Walker's company is learning that its business model, too, has a price. ecompany.com