點解上網買飛仲要俾手續費？(Why we still need to pay transaction fee for online tickets)

(English Below, kind of similar content)

最近嘅迷思：明明香港人工咁貴，點解門市買飛唔駛手續費但上網買飛要呢？

睇咗呢篇新聞明多咗：

【智慧城市】上網買飛仲要手續費？ 須善用科技降低營運成本

簡單嚟講(我相信)，諗呢樣嘢(起碼)要睇几個parties: 用戶，商戶同服務供應商

用戶當然想方便同平，用戶(有時)可以影響商戶決定，好似商戶開個平台但無人用，佢哋都唔想，但相反都有商戶硬推嘅例子，好似McDonald’s個點餐機推出，佢地開頭堅減Counter人手，其實好成功，當然佢個機算易用所以用戶接受啦

商戶推online ticketing係方便用戶，但最終都係想多D生意同埋賺多D($$$同公司形象)，online ticketing可以有多個渠道俾人買到嘢，但operating有佢嘅cost，所以都係要minimise或許balance out。

商戶可以分有錢同無錢(純粹易分)，有錢嘅自己own platform，好多嘢可以唔使咁透明，拉上補下計埋條數就得。

講下自己own platform 嘅operating cost:

1. Server hosting: 固定買一次或者雲端(以開機時數計)
2. Maintenance: 自己員工或者外判

以上嘅都唔係transaction base計，所以多一隻少一隻transaction佢唔駛計咁咁細，最緊要server頂得住流量。

如果用出面服務供應商，我估都係用transaction volume計錢，所以operating cost 會同有几多transaction掛勾。

所以如果自己own platform，我覺得overall加價，門市同online嘅profit一齊分擔，起碼用戶(我)唔會話唔公平。

如果係用出面service provider，我理解點解要收手續費，但well…I don’t feel good about it.

咁點解要用出面provider? 好似call centre咁，你一日有9萬隻call你就justify到自己own，唔係嘅用出面service對公司係抵D。

講咁多都係發下UP瘋，因為咁分析之後，其實所有嘢都有理有據。咁有乜可以做好D(令我舒服D)？用戶Expectation Setting吧，俾用戶明白原因，有D用戶(我)可能Stockholm Syndrome呢。

(English)

Latest question to myself: why buying ticket at ticketing booth does’t require additional transaction fee but online ticketing require that? Aren’t Hong Kong staff cost one of the majority cost of companies?

After digging deeper and with reference to a news (see Chinese portion), basically it’s all about cost.

To analyse this, we take into account 3 parties (at least), the user, the company and service provider (of online ticketing platform)

Regarding users, it’s simple, we want it convenient and we want it low cost (aka free). The company cannot 100% disregard how user user their system, that’s not their objective to push a system but to leverage the system to generate sales/improve company image. Sure there are some example that are more success, like McDonald’s, they tried to use the self service vending machines to reduce cashier staff, they tried to reduce cashier and that kind of succeed, at least thanks to their platform is not difficult to use and people adapted to it.

For the company, on the hand, they need to consider cost effectiveness, which is how much sales/improve in company image (or whatsoever their objective) for running that service. Simple enough, every service need operation cost and they want to make sure that cost justify.

For ticketing system, companies can have 2 major options, to own and maintain it themselves or to use outsource service provider.

Let’s consider the cost, for owning the platform, they need following costs:

1. Server hosting: can be a fix cost it buying physical server or host at cloud service which is a cost per running time
2. Maintence: probably hire staff or leverage outside contractors

As above cost are not really transaction dependent (except the volume of transaction they need to care about which require better or more hardware), so they do not necessarily count the transaction and calculate a cost, what they could possibly do is increase the price of service for both online and ticket booth just to balance the operating cost of the additional channel (online system).

On the other hand, vendor (outsource) online ticketing platform would probably charge the company per transaction volume and thus the company would need to balance/transfer that on the price (of those who used those platform).

So why using outsource vendor? Just like call centre, if your company have thousands of calls per day, it justify the cost, otherwise outsource is much cheaper option.

So ended up after writing this up, I understand every reason why there is such transaction fee, just I still don’t feel it fair (it’s personal, my feel, you do not necessarily agree), maybe what they could do better (for me) is to tell me the reason (I know it, but please tell me you considered my feeling).