Competing on Price is a Flawed Strategy

I have received an email from Airbnb notifying me of the number of views I have received, suggesting that my prices have resulted in lost bookings, and recommending that I lower my prices to attract more bookings.

This is flawed advice. Airbnb hosts should be encouraged to be price makers, not price takers. It is in the host's and Airbnb's interests to keep prices up, no lower them. I differentiate my property using non-price criteria. If I compete on price, then I end up supporting  a race to the bottom. I am not going to do that.

Airbnb should re-think this short-term, flawed price-based policy!

Get rid of smart pricing @Lai-Peng0, as @Peter36 stated. Smart pricing is one of the biggest scams and I haven't heard anyone who has benefited from it. 

David646
Level 1
Los Angeles, CA

Hi everyone,

 

I look at what I can provide with my listing and what other listings providing.

 

I also update my prices automatically 4 times a day, which makes my listings go to the top.

 

I'm always rented at the end of the month, I'm in the high 90%

 

With that knowlege I am able to make my prices competitive. 

 

I set my own prices and they are determined by the places around me, I really dislike smart pricing and would like to be permantly removed. Along with Airbnb hold music.

 

I'm willing to provide co-hosting if anyone needs my services. 

Rob-And-Kate0
Level 1
Ottawa, Canada

I agree 1000%.  I used to set pricing off of the hotel and resort rate in our area with a hefty discount from their price because of the extra features they have versus our place. The system worked great and put us competing with the real competition for those deciding on a hotel or an owner rental. With continual individual price adjustments it has forced us to reduce revenue expectation, spend more time actively managing event pricing, accept more last minute bookings, and possibly contributed to increased cancellations due to lower quality renters we have been seeing in the last year or so. I don't know about others, but we *had* turned off all of the other sites that we used to advertise on and went exclusively with Airbnb. Recently we have been turning the other channels on and it has already impacted the number of bookings Airbnb has gotten from us versus other sites quite significantly (probably 25% now come from non-airbnb bookings).  In our specific case the combination of lower commission on lower revenue and fewer bookings has reduced revenue to Airbnb.