Who uses a Channel Manager?

[Kelly149]

I just signed up with Rentals United (vacayz) in order to get access to Google searches and their no-frills direct listing link... but it's made a few things wonky with the ABB listing and thus far I'm not sure I like it.

Is that a function of my not getting used to it yet or with the one single space am I better off to just manage it myself??

Those of you that use CM, what are the perks, what are the problems, who do you use and what does it cost?

Any other tips/suggestions?

[Kelly149]

@Ann72 am I remembering you say that you use a service?

[Ann72]

@Kelly149  No, @Helen267 uses one and Lisa in Oregon uses Wheelhouse, I believe.

[Kelly149]

@Helen267 house is Gorgeous!! had never spotted that before.

I've always thought Wheelhouse was just a pricing tool...I'll go have a look, thanks @Ann72 !!!

[Lisa723]

@Kelly149 @Ann72 yes Wheelhouse is just a pricing tool.

I use MyVR as a channel manager-- primarily because it is one of the few mechanisms to push Wheelhouse pricing to Vrbo. I don't use it to manage Airbnb, except to sync calendars. MyVR is kind of pricey so if I weren't so attached to Wheelhouse I probably wouldn't use it. But I am happy with it other than that.

[Kelly149]

@Lisa723 if you don't think it too nosey... would you mind to say what you pay to Wheelhouse & MyVR?? 

I'm currently only active on ABB & Vrbo... we do direct bookings for friends and neighbors, have an IG/FB but don't have another direct to strangers booking mechanism.

Could be losing out on some business/money from not "optimizing" the pricing or being on many channels... but if I spend money on managing those things, then what's the upside?

The Vacayz plan is $40/month... their folks/focus seem a bit more European and so far it seems to be creating more work rather than lessening work.

[Lisa723]

@Kelly149 MyVR has a number of different plans, depending on features and how many properties you are managing, etc.. My per-month bill looks like this:

4 Property License

$116.00

1 Multiple Property Website

$49.00

3 HomeAway Listing, Online Booking Enabled

$0.00

Two-Year Discount: 20% Off

- $33.00

I believe the minimum property license is 4, which happens to be my number of listings. I like our website that they host (not sure it's allowed here, but: newtwashwildliferanch), and it was very easy to build. This is where our direct bookings come in and where we direct social media (eg IG), and our business there is steadily growing. You can set up automatic messages that they will send to all guests on whatever channel, with guest- and property-specific data fields. They partner with a number of other vendors, e.g. credit cart processors and damage insurance providers-- our (non-Airbnb) guests can choose to either buy damage insurance or post a real deposit. You create your property data once, and they can build your site on Vrbo/Homeaway, Airbnb, Booking, etc. However, there are occasional glitches and mismatches when data formats don't completely align or hit limitations of the target channel. For example, Booking has text length limits that can result in listing text just being truncated. You can generate lots of reports for bookkeeping, etc.. I probably don't use most of those features.

Wheelhouse charges a flat 1% per booking. In my experience, totally worth it. Arguably I am just really bad at pricing, but our revenue more than doubled with their pricing. The rates are much more dynamic and variable than I was setting them (or would even now be able to take the time to manage), with high-demand dates significantly higher and low-demand dates significantly lower. The result has been nearly 100% occupancy and much higher total revenue.

[Kelly149]

Thank you!! That is helpful. What you lay out is exactly what I'm talking about. I could automate some things and I might could drive some nights higher or the overall occupancy higher, but I don't imagine that it could push enough business to the direct booking route to justify $1500/year (our overall intake for the space in a normal year is ~~$22-30k)

And, yes, I'm totally experiencing the mismatch in fields btwn the CM and ABB - for awhile it was showing 3x as many beds as we actually have and all my House Rules have completely vanished.

This could just be an instance of one space, at mid-level rates and not targeting 100% occupancy isn't worth pursuing the CM

Thanks, @Lisa723 

[Lisa723]

@Kelly149 yes-- we're in it for the Wheelhouse benefit. Wheelhouse can push prices to Airbnb directly, but not to Vrbo/Homeaway. MyVR's primary value for us is its ability to push Wheelhouse prices to Vrbo/Homeaway, and this justifies the expense. Direct booking is important, but can be done for less elsewhere, as can automatic messaging, etc.

[Kelly149]

@Lisa723 that makes sense, and across 4 listings I can see how you could generate enough additional revenue to justify the $130/mo.

How often are the WH prices changing? At this moment 75% of my business comes thru Vrbo. I wonder if I chose WH for ABB pricing, could I manually transfer suggestions over to Vrbo?? 

[Lisa723]

@Kelly149 prices are updated nightly, and vary a lot night-to-night, so I don't think manually copying would be feasible.

But Host Tools (hosttools.com) is a very low-cost tool for automatic messaging and price management, and it can now copy prices from Airbnb to Vrbo, for exactly this scenario. I use Host Tools for automatic messaging on Airbnb and have found it to be a reliable utility.

Caveat: Wheelhouse actually varies pricing by channel, since markets and fee structures differ. So by copying from Airbnb to Vrbo you would lose that fine-tuning. Still might be a significant improvement, though.

[Kelly149]

@Lisa723 it's true... I currently have my listing quite different on ABB/Vrbo, bc of cancellation policies and general risk. 1% might be a worthwhile ask to better price the ABB dates

[Jenny-and-Tom0]

Y'all might find this useful.  It's a comprehensive list of channel managers, their cost and features.  https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ivkdyGn9GGSnL15PB1OgIWtWNCb15Y4A5ihcpz24ZsU/edit?usp=sharing.  I'm the developer of HostTools.com, let me know if you have any questions.