Imagine you are a hop-on hop-off bus operator in a large capital city, employing 20 vendors who each sell tickets to the public in different locations around the city. How do you control commission rates across various vendors, city locations, tour products, and payment methods? (cash, credit card, and vouchers.)
That’s where sales user commissioning steps in.
User commissioning is designed for operators who employ street sellers to process walk-up payments in-destination. This includes, for example, hop-on hop-off bus operators, tourist ferry operators, river cruise operators, and visitor attractions.
It also benefits smaller operators who rely more heavily on revenue from walk-ups in-destination, as opposed to revenue from online pre-bookings and OTAs.
The three key functions of sales user commissioning
As an operator or visitor attraction, sales user commissioning offers you three key functionalities:
Set sales commission rates on a fixed-amount and/or percentage basis: You can set a fixed-amount commission rate for a seller processing voucher payments and a more appealing higher percentage commission rate for a seller processing card payments.
Configure different commission threshold levels: This function allows you to set different commission threshold levels to incentivise your street sellers to process a specific payment type – such as credit card.
Set commission rates according to tour product, location, and payment account: As an operator or visitor attraction, you can set a higher commission rate on specific products you most want to sell – to encourage vendors to offer them more proactively.
How does sales user commissioning help operators and visitor attractions?
From tracking walk-up payments to incentivising vendors and managing budgets, operators and attractions face a wide range of challenges in the field of street ticket sales. Sales user commissioning offers a number of solutions, to help operators and attractions manage street sales better.
Reduce cash payments in favour of card transactions
Processing walk-up cash payments and tracking cash revenue is time-consuming. There are also challenges around monitoring budgets and sales reporting across different sellers, locations, products, and destinations.
Sales user commissioning helps you to reduce troublesome cash payments, by offering street sellers higher commission rates on card transactions – which are easier to track and manage.
“An operator can push for card payments by offering 1% commission to street sellers processing a payment in cash, and 5% commission if they process the transaction by credit card. The seller will encourage their customers to pay by card because they earn more commission.”
Philipp Fueglistaller, Director of Products at Palisis
Whether it’s a brand new tour product coming to market, a seasonal special offer, or an upsell from standard to premium tickets, there are certain cases where an operator or attraction needs to push specific products. However, incentivising vendors to promote certain products to the public isn’t always easy.
Sales user commissioning allows you to offer vendors higher commission rates on certain tour products or upgrades. In this way, promoting sales of specific products is far easier.
Balance the benefits of different city locations
Street sellers want to work from the busiest city locations with the highest footfall in order to make the most money. Placing vendors around your city to boost visibility and capture the most business possible can be challenging.
However, by varying the commission levels attached to the different selling locations across a city, you can level the playing field between quieter and busier areas. Sales user commissioning allows sales made in areas of relatively low footfall to earn the seller a higher commission rate.
This balances the benefits of different city locations for the vendors selling your products and increases your visibility to the public across the city.
Improve walk-up payment security
Managing cash floats among vendors can be time-consuming and problematic. Street sellers carrying large amounts of company money pose an inherent danger, and operators struggle with the lack of payment security that cash provides.
By using commission rates to incentivise street sellers to process card transactions over cash payments, you’ll see an improvement in walk-up payment security.
Minimise loss of revenue through theft
Revenue loss due to error or theft is a risk for operators employing temporary or seasonal street vendors for ticket sales. A vendor may start selling tickets to the public with a large cash float of company money. They may not maintain accurate records of their cash sales, or they may abscond completely.
Sales user commissioning can be used to incentivise street sellers to process card transactions over cash payments. This way, you’ll reduce the risk of theft and minimise loss of revenue.
Watch Video: Set-up sales user commissioning in Palisis
Contact us today to learn more about sales user commissioning and chat with our team today!