What if Price Tips were fixed so that they made sense?

[Dede0]

A radical idea, I know. But price tips are either broken entirely, buggy as heck, OR they're a sort of random sham. Here's my latest proof that one of those three possibilities must be the case. I've been helping a neighbor run a new listing for a 3-bedroom/2-bath house. For a day that's currently priced at $160 for up to three guests (with add'l fees per add'l guests up to 7), here's the price tip:

"Your listing appeared in search for this night but people booked other listings that are about $156 less per night"

So...... someone apparently booked a comparable listing (a place that has at least 3 bedrooms and 2 baths, or sleeps at least 6-7 people) for "about" $156 less than $160.  $160 minus "about $156" is "about" $4.

I'd love to find that listing myself. I'd sell my house and move in to the $4 rental.

That same tip appears for some of the other identically-priced days. And for a day priced at $180, a similar tip claiming that someone booked elsewhere because they found someplace for $127 less. Not quite the screamer of a deal as those $4 days, but still a 3/2 for only $53.

My suggestion for AirBnB is two-fold. First, turn off price tips entirely. (They're not provding reliable information anyway.) Then don't turn them back on until you figure out what's wrong OR (in the random-sham scenario), start using actual data and actual working algorithms.

Just a thought!

[Ann10]

Price tips and Smart Pricing are totally whack and make no sense at all. My account was hacked in the past and everything was messed up. This was before PT and SP. Since the Tech department was unable to fix what the hacker did for months on end, I would create new listings for the same place. For one reason or another I had to do it a few times because my account was messed up and it took them along time to fix. It was grueling. I really wanted my nephew to come and fix it. I know he could have put an end to all the nonsense and daily phone calls and dealing w know it alls, and all that.

Anyway, so now I have a bunch of different listings for the same place. Guess what, all different price tips, and smart pricing for the same exact space at the same exact location. It's unbelievable. Plus, sometimes I get prices that are lower than when I first started and I was booked every night. When they 1st started giving tips they gave me tips that were higher than the price I picked myself and I'm not going lower than that. Why would I need them if I'm going to price so low? I could do better on CL. I really don't like the downward pricing pressure. Everything in red meaning you won't get booked at this prices. Yes, I have. Now the cruel new rating system that gives all this power to the odd man out. No good. 

If you receive:

A single 4-star rating, you need 4 perfect 5-star ratings to average 4.8

A single 3-star rating, you need 9 perfect 5-star ratings to average 4.8

A single 2-star rating, you need 14 perfect 5-star ratings to average 4.8

A single 1-star rating, you need 19 perfect 5-star ratings to average 4.8

So it is much, much harder to overcome a single bad rating if that rating is a very low one.

[Dede0]

While the new rating formulas only slightly bug me (our listing has, depending on category, 35-75-175 consecutive 5-star ratings), the pricing BS bothers me a lot. The Tips and Smart Pricing are essentially meaningless. Because I know that and ignore them, I'm fine. But it bothers me that so many other hosts are being misled and, effectively, bullied. (It also bothers me slightly that I can't take advantage of actually useful information from AirBnB.)

Other than the completely whacko example I provided in the original posting, my other favorite misguided pressure tactic of AirBnB's is the advisories that if I'd just drop my rates to $XX, I'd increase my bookings by X% for months A and B. All that when months A and B are already 97% booked, with maybe one isolated unbooked day. (And, not coincidentally, unbookable because of our 2-day minimum.) This happens every single month, without fail.

What that sort of advisory tells me is just how unsophisticated AirBnB's coding and algorithms are.

And -- hey! -- are you listening AirBnB? -- I think all of this might be an indication of how AirBnB is being "played" by their coding staff. Lots of noise, lots of seemingly precisely tuned data and suggestions, etc. But mostly just noise for noise's sake. I honestly think that AirBnB itself is being taken advantage of (out of ignorance) as much as all of us hapless hosts.

I've mentioned this before but I'll mention it again -- I spent 25 years in the software biz, including a couple of vastly successful startups. I know bad programming and bad coding management when I see it.

[Tony286]

I’ve been digging into this and they wouldn’t share the flow they use to work out ‘smart pricing’

What I do now is look at what other like properties rent for, look at local events and holidays and price my place what I’m happy with.

[Dede0]

I was going to enter this as a new thread, but since none of this really matters to AirBnB anyway, I'll just toss it here as a comment.

Here's more silliness with the price tips and such: When I view our calendar for the current month, which has ONE (1) unbooked day, this advisory appears over on the right-hand side:

"Earn up to $85 for Mar 29

To boost your chance of getting booked for these dates, offer 11% off. Guests will see “11% off” on your listing and selected guests will receive an email about the offer."

The silliness is two-fold. First, the day (March 29) is already priced at $85. So how the heck would offering 11% off result in us earning "up to $85"? Secondly, our listing doesn't accept single-night bookings (something that AirBnB "knows" but apparently can't be bothered to use), so even if I offered a 100% discount, the night wouldn't get booked.

More evidence that AirBnB's price tips are complete BS. Which, once again, I suggest, tells me that AirBnB's coding team is faking it. Not only abusing and misleading hosts and wasting our time, but also "cheating" AirBnB. Which, again, suggests to me that the management of the coding teams is either totally incompetent OR i on the sham.

Any comment, AirBnB? No? (I don't really expect any.)

Any comment, coders or coding management? I don't really expect anything here either, although a few weeks ago, someone from AirBnB apparently DID add a comment (I got the notification) but then that comment was quickly deleted. Why not engage with me AirBnB or AirBnB coding mgmt? We could even have a private conversation. Do neither of you care? Are you AFRAID to discuss something that might prove to be embarrassing?

Such a conversation could actually prove to be valuable to AirBnB. Probably not so much to the managers of the coders...

ps: Just for fun, I changed the price that single, isolated day (March 29) from $85 to $9,985. Within a few minutes, this is what the price suggestion said:

"Earn up to $9,985 for Mar 29

To boost your chance of getting booked for these dates, offer 11% off. Guests will see “11% off” on your listing and selected guests will receive an email about the offer."

Once again, two (or more) really dumb things here. First, they still suggest that by offering 11% off, I can make EXACTLY what the price was already set to. Math geniuses, for sure! Secondly, their "smart pricing" etc, etc, doesn't seem to have any awareness that a place that normally lists for $85-105/night could possibly be accurately priced at $9,985. Wow... I don't even know where to begin. Except that, once again, this tells me even more than before that either AirBnB is playing BS with hosts, or (more likely), the coders and their mgmt are playing BS with AirBnB. This is so bad that it's almost criminal.

Can *anyone* within AifrBnB or this 3rd-party discussion board alert AirBnB to what's going on?

[Ann10]

@Tony286-Who is they? Airbnb? Or the coders? @Dede0- Can you pls tell me what is a coder? I agree the SP is making ABB go down hill, but I used to be the 1st listing that would come up in a search and now I'm like 4 or 5 pages back. I wonder if it's because I constantly say, no thanks to everything they keep suggesting I do with my pricing, calendar, or Instant Booking, or is it because I keep speaking my mind in the forums.

[Dede0]

Ann,

Tony's comment was fuzzy to me, too. Why on earth would AirBnB share "the flow they use" (whatever that is) with some random host asking questions? Anyway...

By "coders" I mean software programmers. I come from a software/tech background, so that terminology seems -- rightly or not -- self-evident to me. Apparently not to everyone, which is understandable.

Given that I've consistentely written many horrible things about AirBnB here in the forums (all well-deserved, of course), and have suffered no ill effects, I'm pretty sure that they don't downgrade listings for those bad-mouthings. In your case -- I'm just guessing here -- if you're actually seeing lower results in the search listings, then I'd suggest these reasons:

Obviously, turning on Instant Book will upgrade your listing. AirBnB makes that clear. I was once vehemently opposed to IB, but we use it now most of the time and haven't seen any ill effects. Try it -- turn it on -- you can alwys turn it off at any time.

Also, while declining booking requests or inquiries occasionally won't hurt your ranking, doing either too often definitely will.

Finally, here's an unverified Pro Tip: Make a modification to your listing every day or two. AirBnB even explains that "active" listings get a higher ranking in the search results. So... go change a price (up or down, it hardly matters) for some dates; go edit your listing's description in some minor way; correspond with the current guest or a future guest. Anything like that that indicates that you're an "active" host.

[Ann10]

@Dede0-Thank you for the tips. I'm used to being at the top or at least on the 1st page. Maybe I haven't been as active on my page. I will work on that. I had to decline someone because I already had an Airbnb booking on those dates. Airbnb told me you don't move up or down for declining, you only move down for doing nothing. I will take your other suggestions under advisement. Thank you! 🙂

[Ann10]

@Dede0- I just got a tip to lower my price 25% to make $100 on April 1st. The price is already $100 and on my dad's vacation house I use smart pricing, but the price can't go lower than $50. But get this, they were giving me tips of $113-117 a day. Then they said get more bookings by lowering something. I can't remember now what it was. I did think $113 was too much so I put $50 as the base or the lowest. I'm not sure I changed something. Anyway, the price is already what they are telling me I will make if I lower the price 25%. Yes, SP is whack!

[Dede0]

And for the latest evidence that price tips (and "Smart Pricing") are unrelated to any aspect of reality, here's some text from an email I just got from AirBnB:

"More than 50% of similar listings are getting booked

It looks like you’re not getting as many bookings as other listings like yours in Austin.

To help get your share of bookings, try Smart Pricing. It lets you set your prices to automatically go up or down to match demand in your market, but only within the price range you choose." 

This, when this month is 100% booked, next month is currently 94% booked and the month after that is also 94% booked.

I'm telling you, they simply MAKE THIS CRAP UP.

[Ann10]

@Dede0- When I look to see who around me has ridiculously low pricing, I can't find anyone. I'm prompted to look when they tell me, X amount of guests looked at your listing but they booked places that were $95 less a night? Really? Pls show me the competetor who is willing to go that low?