Overview
Dynamic Pricing, also known as surge pricing or demand pricing, is a pricing strategy where the price of your products or services adjusts in real-time based on market demand, seasonality, customer behaviour, and other factors.
This strategy helps maximize revenue, increase competitiveness, and optimize inventory by offering flexible prices to your customers.
If you're ready to implement Dynamic Pricing in Zaui, download the full guide below:
>>Dynamic Pricing Guidebook<<
What’s Covered in This Article
- Benefits of a Dynamic Pricing Model
- Enabling Dynamic Pricing in Zaui
- What activity types can I apply Dynamic Pricing to
- Dynamic Pricing, Promo Codes & Discounts
- Creating Your First Ruleset
- Applying Dynamic Pricing to an Activity
- Creating, Editing & Managing Bookings
- Viewing Dynamic Pricing In the Booking Itinerary
- Gift Cards
- Important Things to Note
Benefits of a Dynamic Pricing Model
Increased Revenue
By adjusting prices in real time based on market demand, dynamic pricing can help your business optimize its pricing strategy for better revenue management. For example, during periods of high demand, your business can increase prices to capture more revenue.
Improved Competitiveness
Dynamic pricing can help your business stay competitive by allowing it to adjust prices in response to changes in market demand and competitive pricing. This can help your business attract more customers and increase market share. Additionally, it allows for more price promotions such as segmented pricing, peak pricing, competitor pricing, group discounts, time based pricing, etc.
Better Inventory Management
Dynamic pricing can help your business better manage its inventory by reducing overstocking and stock-outs. By adjusting prices based on demand, your business can encourage customers to purchase products that may be overstocked or discount products that are selling slowly.
Increased Customer Satisfaction
Dynamic pricing can help your business offer a different price to customers during periods of low demand, high demand and based on customer behaviour which can increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. Customers may be more likely to return to your business if they feel they are getting fair prices.
Increased Efficiency
Dynamic pricing is a price optimization strategy that can help your business automate its pricing process, which can increase efficiency and reduce labour costs. By using data analytics and dynamic pricing algorithms to optimize prices, your business can save time and resources that would have been spent on manual pricing adjustments.
Overall, dynamic pricing can help your business improve its bottom line by increasing revenue, improving competitiveness, better inventory management, increasing customer satisfaction, and increasing efficiency.
Enabling Dynamic Pricing in Zaui
Dynamic Pricing is disabled by default. To activate:
- Go to Settings > Marketplace
- Locate Dynamic Pricing and enable it
- A new option appears under Settings > Pricing > Dynamic Pricing
Supported Activity Types
- Transportation
- Activity / Custom
- Rental (Both passenger and equipment-based)
- Ticket
- Interval
How Dynamic Pricing Works with Discounts and Promo Codes
Dynamic Pricing operates independently from discounts and promo codes:
- Discounts and promo codes apply on top of the final price, which includes any Dynamic Pricing adjustments
- You can set up rules within Dynamic Pricing to offer incentives, such as group discounts or time-based promotions
Creating Your First Ruleset
Creating a pricing rule is the first step in implementing Dynamic Pricing. Within your ruleset, you'll be able to set criteria such as:
- Parameters - When certain conditions are met, they will trigger multipliers to adjust the standard activity rate.
- Pricing limits - Limit the minimum and maximum price to avoid unreasonable pricing.
Available Parameters
|
Parameter |
Activity Types |
Notes |
|---|---|---|
|
Activity |
Applicable to all |
Multiplier applies when any of the selected activities are booked |
|
Activity - Date Range |
Applicable to all |
Multiplier will apply to activities that take place within the given date range |
|
Activity - Day of Week |
Applicable to all |
Multiplier will apply to activities that take place on the selected day(s) of the week |
|
Activity - Departure Time |
|
Multiplier will apply to activities that depart (or start)
within the specified time range. |
|
Activity - Load Level % |
|
A multiplier will apply once reservations reach the designated percentage. For instance, if the load level is configured at 80%, the multiplier will be activated once the activity is filled to 80% capacity. Based on confirmed bookings only, does not include any pending bookings |
|
Activity - Month |
Applicable to all |
Multiplier will apply to activities that take place on the selected month(s) |
|
Booking - Date Range |
Applicable to all |
Multiplier will apply to activities that are booked within the given date range |
|
Booking - Day of Week |
Applicable to all |
Multiplier will apply to bookings made on the selected day(s) of the week |
|
Booking - Group Size |
|
Multiplier will take effect when a group size meets or falls into the range of the group size specified. When booking a group that crosses over more than one range, all passengers in the group are charged a higher rate |
|
Booking - Lead Time |
Applicable to all |
Multiplier will apply to bookings made a certain number of days before the activity date. (i.e. a discount for bookings made 90 -120 days in advance.) |
|
Booking - Month |
Applicable to all |
Multiplier will apply to bookings made on the selected month(s) |
|
Customer Type |
|
Multiplier will apply to bookings with selected passenger types |
|
Equipment Category |
|
Multiplier will apply when activities using specified rental equipment are booked. Applies to Equipment Pricing |
|
Holiday Date |
Applicable to all |
This multiplier will apply when an activity date falls on the selected holiday(s). The holidays are based on the country set in Company Info in your Zaui system. |
|
Rental Duration - Hours |
|
Multiplier will apply for bookings that have a rental time
that meets the specified range. |
|
Seat Type |
|
Multiplier will be applied to specified seat types |
For example:If a booking is made for the activity Ticket on Tuesday with a start time of 9:00 a.m then,
- The first parameter will apply (Base Price x2)
- The second parameter will apply (Base Price x3)
- The third parameter will be ignored
Pricing Limits
Pricing limits are set to ensure that multipliers do not increase the price outside of a reasonable range.
Setting a minimum will ensure the price does not drop below your set value and a maximum will ensure the cost does not go above the set value.
Saving Your Ruleset
Make sure to save your ruleset once you have set up everything as desired. If you have any missing details, you will be unable to save them. As shown below, If you find the Save button is greyed out, it's most likely due to missing information. You can spot any missing information with a yellow .
Applying Dynamic Pricing to an Activity
o apply Dynamic Pricing to an activity:
- Navigate to Activity List > Activity > Dynamic Pricing Ruleset
- Click + Add Ruleset
- Configure the following:
- Ruleset: Select from your available rulesets
- Start Date/End Date: Defaults to activity date range but can be customised
-
Booking Source: Specify where Dynamic Pricing applies:
- OBE (Online Booking Engine)
- Distribution (Resellers)
- Mobile (Zaui App)
- Core (Back Office)
- Optional Filters:
- Portal: Apply to specific portals only
- Company Group: Apply to selected company groups
- Channel Partners: Apply to specific resellers
- Click Save to apply the configuration.If you do not already have a ruleset created, you can click on Create Ruleset. See Creating Your First Ruleset. If you have already created one, click + Add Ruleset as shown below.
Creating, Editing & Managing Bookings
When a booking is edited, Dynamic Pricing rules may reprocess the price:
| Booking Action | Price Impact |
|---|---|
| Adding passengers | Price recalculates for all passengers |
| Removing passengers | Price recalculates for all passengers |
| Changing contact information | No price change |
| Changing activity or date | Price recalculates for all passengers |
| Changing time (same day/activity) | Price recalculates for all passengers |
Viewing Dynamic Pricing In the Booking Itinerary
The historical notes of a booking itinerary will break down which Dynamic Pricing parameters and pricing limits are applied. The breakdown, as in the image below, will show the multiplier as well as the dollar value added to reach to total booking price.
Gift Cards
Guests who buy activity gift cards are purchasing the activity itself. This means if a gift card is purchased, it can be used for that activity regardless of the current price. If a gift card was purchased at a lower rate, there would not be an outstanding balance for the difference. The same applies to the reverse where a guest may buy a gift card at a higher price. The booking will not show a credit/refund owing.
Important Things to Note
- Only one Dynamic Pricing ruleset can apply to an activity at a time; overlapping date ranges are not permitted
- Booking edits trigger new price calculations for all passengers
- Multiple parameters can stack, increasing pricing beyond expectations; use Pricing Limits to control this
- Dynamic Pricing does not reflect on most third-party reseller or OTA websites