Building Trust to Expand Reach: What’s in it for ticketing marketplaces?
It was an overcast and cool February morning as our newly-hired Head of Sales, Ken, and I were sitting in a 4th floor conference room of a major ticket marketplace. We were joined by three members of the marketplace team: an operations strategist, senior director, and VP of corporate development.
It was 2019. Blockchain was near the peak of the hype cycle (similar to live stream during COVID or more recently NFTs and Web3). True Tickets was much more theoretical then than it is now and much of our conversation oriented around the impacts distributed ledger technology could have on ticketing. The VP asked a question that is top of mind for all marketplaces when they speak with us: “What’s in it for a marketplace?” Here is the answer.
The Good, the Bad…and the Opportunities
Secondary ticket marketplaces are a wonderland for consumers, offering them more opportunities to find tickets to the exact events and experiences they desire. However, with ticket sales happening primarily online, it’s easy for scammers to use the opportunity to cheat honest, well-meaning people. CNBC has reported that roughly twelve percent of ticket sales are scams, and the negative experiences that buyers have had with resellers are many, from purchasing tickets that don’t actually exist to being charged absurdly high hidden fees that only appear at the end of the transaction.
This has presented a unique opportunity for mainstream resellers such as StubHub, Vivid Seats, SeatGeek, and Gametime, who strive to connect music, arts, and sports lovers on their platforms — companies that have worked for years to provide service and transactions that buyers can rely on. These secondary marketplaces have a good UX, remarkable SEO, and a wide-ranging pool of clients. We’ve seen the media tout the trustworthiness of some secondary sellers; in a 2019 piece, The Guardian highlighted several marketplaces as standing out in the “wild west” of the secondary ticketing market. Meanwhile, NBC gave a recent rundown of tips to tell if a ticket resale website is legit.
Such pieces speak to the fact that despite the existence of top-tier, credible secondary marketplaces, there is an overall negative perception of ticket resellers, with trust, brand, and image issues persisting. This negatively impacts not only the user experience of purchasing from a marketplace; it can also impact loyalty and customer retention.
Rather than ignoring or decrying any criticism, marketplaces have a unique opportunity to solve these problems, forging forward with ticketing solutions that enable them to operate better — both internally as well as in the eyes of their consumers. Here are three ways such solutions would effect change in the secondary ticketing marketplace.
Access to New Markets and Revenue Streams
A key problem facing secondary ticketing marketplaces is an inability to expand into new or skeptical markets and access new revenue streams. One of the biggest barriers to this expansion is the reluctance of clients in the non-profit performing arts market to work with even the largest of resellers due to concerns over transparency, trust, and delivering the best experience to their customers.
The kicker is that these clients would be keen to leverage the amazing reach of secondary marketplaces but are hesitant to do so because of lack of trust. Any solution that helps confirm the validity of each and every ticket coming across a marketplace would boost that platform’s credibility — making it an attractive partner that could potentially expand the customer base for both parties.
Increase Trust to Improve Brand
Another hurdle many marketplaces struggle to overcome is lack of transparency in an online world riddled with anonymous and fraudulent sales. Consumers have no guarantees that they’re purchasing a ticket with a known origin, that it’s been validated as a real ticket, and often they’re uncertain of who exactly they are purchasing their ticket from.
The latter issue sends them shopping at a credible marketplace, but marketplaces can do even more to deepen that trust. Working with a partner to resolve issues associated with unauthorized ticket reselling demonstrates a real commitment to customer service — something that’s attractive both to consumers and to potential partners. Taking these steps frames marketplaces as reliable, go-to sources for experiences, starting with the purchase process and all the way through attending the event itself. It’s the key to promoting brand loyalty and user retention, which is critical for marketplaces to stand out amongst their competition.
Operate More Efficiently and Effectively
There is an epic level of both operational and market inefficiency in ticketing. This is especially true in secondary the market, where a significant amount of time and money are devoted to determining both if a ticket is valid and who has it before placing it up for sale. The associated costs are passed onto and directly borne by the consumer (adding to the negative stereotype of price gouging amongst ticket resellers).
These problems can be resolved with a platform that addresses the market inefficiencies, reducing costs and driving significant synergies. This includes reduced development, creating less reliance on ticket scanning/verification systems, reduced operating costs, and reducing the number of malicious actors and behaviors onsite. The result is a more streamlined process with a product that — in the end — costs less for both the marketplaces and ultimately consumers.
Change is an Opportunity
When we founded True Tickets, it was because we saw this opporutnity. Validity, ease of use, and transparency should be a reality for all consumers, whether they’re the primary purchaser of a ticket or buying from a reseller. While these factors are often framed as negatives by the press, my hope is that companies in the secondary market will see them for what they really are — opportunities for growth, expansion, and a whole new pool of customers simply waiting to be won over.
