Fareharbor & Other Booking Systems

ParallelUniverseVR

Hey All,

Anyone using Fareharbor? How's it working out for you? Have you had any negative feedback from Fareharbor's model of charging the customers a 6% service fee? What's the general feeling on that model vs. the arcade paying a monthly fee (such as Checkfront)? Any other general advice on the various booking platforms?

geralexandr

We have reviewed a bunch of booking systems in the past for our another business. Recently had a demo of Fareharbor and 1) it looks cluttered from both front end (really not 2019 visuals, springboard is doing so much better) and back end 2) not the best set of features on the market(no split payment, no auto follow up on uncompleted booking, no booking changes/rebooking from the client end within cancellation policy, etc.) 3) 6% is a ripoff, however, they hide it into taxes and fees line item and probably 99%of customers never find out that the "tax" is double sized. We really hope that there will be access to Springboard API so we can use booking system of our choice (or even in house ones).

thevrclub

I was disappointed to discover that 6% booking fee, it's not very competitive. When you're booking groups of 8 or more people that can easily add up to paying for a whole extra person. Plus the Springboard integration is only going to be one-way at least at first. It's just going to create more work for me which defeats the point, in part.

I'll be sticking with Springboard's booking option for now until a better solution without too big of a compromise comes along

ParallelUniverseVR

thevrclub

When you say 6% is not very competitive, who are you comparing it to? All the other booking platforms I found charged a monthly fee. I didn't see anyone else doing this % fee to the customer. It's also nice that my customers can avoid this fee by booking in store or on the phone. So, my regulars likely won't get hit hard by this change. Still, I am nervous about any blowback in the beginning

thevrclub

ParallelUniverseVR

@ParallelUniverseVR I think Checkfront is around 3-4% I can't remember exactly, but yes as you mentioned they do charge a monthly fee on top. It's a bit annoying these companies hide the booking fee to their customers (us) up until they have to disclose it when on the phone or via email, since it's a crucial factor when deciding what platform to use.

That's one big plus for Springboard's booking widget, there's no additional cost for our customers

geralexandr

ParallelUniverseVR

Some systems charge per number of bookings (like $30 for 1000).

gameovr

Checkfront is only a flat fee no % of transactions so it really depends on your monthly sales. For us its about 1-1.25% of all our sales so much lower than the 6% they charge. If you are running a much smaller location it may be a larger portion of your sales.

gameovr

geralexandr

yeah I get 6000 bookings a year which is way more than enough for me.

Jayson_Paglow

Hey everyone,

Thanks for posting your comments! We've been reviewing this conversation and even though we know we can't offer a perfect solution here we'd love to hear if anyone has tried other booking systems they'd like us to consider integrating in the future (other than Checkfront and Fareharbor).

arena.vr

Jayson_Paglow

You guys have to increase your efforts in building good booking, customizable in terms of different bookings options (party bookings, different experience for the same station, FB pixel integration and google analytics and so on...) and analytics (cost of licensing for each booking, length of booking, amount of booking and so on). STOP ASKING ABOUT OTHER BOOKING SYSTEMS!!!! AND Make your API open for the guys who making their own booking.

geralexandr

Jayson_Paglow

Xola has the sleek look and the greatest set of functionality. The drawback is the pricing - same 6% of online revenue. Bokify - now Resova has good front end and pricing (top tier - $100 per 600 bookings per month). They also seem to have resource management (important if you want to run multiple experiences on the same stations (like an exclusive content aside from arcade games) ) Bookeo is cheap but looks like it is from 2000s (on par with fare harbor I would say).

Jayson_Paglow

geralexandr

@geralexandr

Thank you Alex!

Are there any of these that you would want to use more than the others?

ParallelUniverseVR

geralexandr

@geralexandr - do you know if any of these booking systems accept clover payment processing?

geralexandr

Jayson_Paglow

Actually, if you guys implement 4 features in your booking system: 1) resource management (a station is a resource that can me shared between different experiences - i.e. VR escape room, VR arcade, etc). A party room can also be a resource and an add- on on the booking. 2) Ability to add multiple experiences on shared resources 3) A field to add our google tags on your booking page to properly track conversions(or another way to integrate google tracking) 4) Coupons with dates when available, redeem on use it will be a good enough booking system for all of our needs and will be very competitive with other booking systems on the market (for the price).

geralexandr

ParallelUniverseVR

We don't have info on that unfortunately. To my uneducated eye it looks like they might use Stripe with negotiated bulk rate of 1.9-1.99, but I might be very wrong on that.

thevrclub

@Jayson_Paglow which systems has Springboard already looked into?

Has anyone tried Acuity Scheduling? https://acuityscheduling.com/

arena.vr

geralexandr

I'll add 3.1 Facebook pixel integration as well.

arena.vr

geralexandr

Hey @everyone go vote the feature request please https://features.springboardvr.com/feature-requests/p/booking-system-upgrade-not-through-integration that I just created! I hope devs can implement it very fast without any bullsh*t integration!

colincentrevr

We use Fareharbor and the Springboard link has not happened yet. Supposed to this week. It's way better than Sb booking system in that it's more powerful, but the views are not as nice and friendly as Sb. I prefer the functionality though. Block booking our entire 30 stations for a corporate function is a breeze with FH, days work with Sb lol. I think on a cost viewpoint a lot of people fail to see the added value of "partnering" with FH. Once on board its in their interest to help you get more online bookings so help you with that. So the 6% is their incentive to make them work with you. I have had help with seo, website, tracking, analytics etc. Their support is 24hrs and always quick to answer and always excellent. That for us is awesome. Would not get that from a provider. They are a partner, not a provider. So to those that think it's expensive I suggest, politely, you investigate those areas. We have had absolutely no customer mention the booking fee and have only seen an increase in bookings since moving to FH. The fee is easily avoided by a phone call. Walk ins are not charged for too. I really like this model and recommend it to others. Looking forward to the two way api link working too.

geralexandr

colincentrevr

With all due respect, but 6% of revenue from 30 stations buys full-time SEO, web-design and marketing. I would greatly appreciate if FH could make their payment pages fit user screens instead of free advice on seo and marketing.

colincentrevr

geralexandr

Hi Alex, I understand your point, and you are correct, but I would prefer to partner with a company like Fareharbor who are part of bookings.com and know I have their expertise on board and their enthusiasm to bring me customers than another provider, who would not also provide a booking system with 24 hr support etc. So far I feel I am getting value for money, and they are also designing a new web site for me for free and helping in other areas, so I am happy. I was just stating the point that appeared to be missing that the 6% is not just for the booking system alone. When you get some of the others you are paying for that. We also like the fact that we dont actually pay anything :) . I appreciate its not for everyone, but we were asked for our experience and this is part of the decision making process for us, to consider this extra element quite seriously, Their 24hr support is truly outstanding, in a world where most customer support is a terrible experience and relies on "tickets" which I hate. With FH you get a knowledgeable person on the phone, who knows you and your system immediately, that is worth a lot to us too.