Smart Pricing.... not smart at all

Smart Pricing.... not smart at all

In the words of Groucho Marx

 

 

“Gentleman, Chicolini here may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot, but don’t let that fool you. He really is an idiot.”

 

 

Groucho referred to Smart Pricing as "Chicolini"

7 Comments
Rebecca181
Level 10

I'm with you. I have a 1550 square foot Cottage on one third acre 300 feet from the beach, and during the supposed 'off-season' in my area Airbnb was prompting me to list it for $59.00 a night. HA! I lowered my prices down to what I thought the market could bear and I have remained nearly sold out through the off-season, so there you go.

Di-and-Duncan0
Level 2

Quite agree - I just ignore smart pricing but keep getting prompted, how I can I switch it off PERMANENTLY - I know my prices - I don’t care if someone got something in the area for less, if I cant see which property how can I be sure it is even comparative? I 

d rather not sell than give it away

Jo20
Level 2

I'd also like to switch of Smart Pricing permanently. It's annoying - like Spam - and reflects no understanding of my unique property or costs:  maintenance for swimming pool, lifts, gardens, security systems, undercover parking, spa batch etc.  Other properties in the area offer none of these. 

I'm exploring Smart Pricing as our bookings have been down for December. I discovered that you can set Smart Pricing but also go into the calendar and reset prices for any days you want while still using Smart Pricing for all other days. You can also set a minimum and maximum price. I don't know how accurate Smart Pricing prices are, though. Still waiting for bookings!

Šarka0
Level 6

I have a proof of how stupid smart pricing or suggestions are.

 

From time to time I check the light bulbs in calendar to see if anything "interesting" is showing and today I saw this...

My current nightly price off-season is 85 € (otherwise it's 95) and the suggestion for 14th Feb told me that "...people booked other listings that are about €84 less per night."

So, for the giggles I tried to set in their suggestion of  1 € for the night (85-84=1), but it turned out the minimum price must be 8 € (awww shucks).

 

So here you have it, Airbnb is suggesting prices which it doesn't even let us set.

 

 

Screen Shot 2018-02-12 at 16.53.55.png

Rebecca181
Level 10

@Jessica-and-Stacey0 I do this also, but one word of caution: When I re-set my prices (took them off of smart pricing) ALL the dates I had blocked out because my Cottage was booked via a linked listing unblocked themselves. This happened every time! If I had not been double-checking my calendar for other reasons, I would have not have noticed it, and no doubt would have experienced the dreaded 'double booking' as a result. So watch out for that when you change the prices. 

Šarka0
Level 6

@Rebecca181

Have you manually synced the connected calendars after changing the prices/smartprices? Usually that does the trick for me.

Because when you select all the dates between xx and yy and change the price, you also change avilability at the same time (default is Available), so then you need to go to availability settings and manually sync each calendar you have imported, so it blocks the unavailable dates again using the calendar's info.