My daughter recently asked me what a Travel Agency does. There is one located on our street and it has just been completely renovated. I told her that they helped people book their trips and vacations. “Why haven’t we ever been in there?” she wanted to know. “Because we do everything ourselves online these days” I explained. “But why do it yourself if other people want to do it for you?” she wondered out loud.
The answer is that the travel agency makes a little bit of money on each ticket you book through them. If you book your ticket yourself, online, you save that money. Saving money sounds great except that when you think about it you typically spend three evenings comparing prices to end up saving €30 on a €300 trip. All those €30 discounts add up of course so I guess we should be happy with that.
Still, how bad is it really to pay someone €30 and trust them to buy you something decent? Wouldn’t you say your free evenings are worth more than €10 a piece?
Consider books for a moment. Buying your book at Amazon saves you maybe 30% to 40% on each book. Add to that the convenience of shopping from home and getting the package delivered to your home address. So far so good.
Unfortunately that does mean you spend way too much time browsing Amazon.com while you could do something fun instead. Like maybe reading an actual book?
Then the package arrives and you aren’t home and end up having to pick it up at the local post-office. All in all I wonder how much time I end up investing in the whole process.
Time sounds free, but to most of us, it is more valuable than money.
The Internet Economy promised to get rid of the middle-men and we loved it. Somehow, I’m starting to get the feeling that we ourselves ended up doing the work of that middle-men we were so eager to get rid off.
In any project you can always pick two of these: fast, cheap or good. We seem to have focused a lot on ‘cheap’ and ‘good’ but the extra time we need to invest to also keep it ‘fast’ comes out of our own pockets.
You can always make more money but you can never make more time.
I do pretty much the same thing. The thing is that I don’t want to spend money on travel agencies, it’s just that I don’t TRUST them anymore. Online you can check out what other people have to say, and make sure to pay the right price (not the cheapest, we just don’t want to be ripped off I guess…) for the right holiday. With people or agencies we trust.
There is no review, rating or sidewiki hanging next to the travel agency around the corner. Unless you looked it up on Google Places on beforehand ;-).
Partly agree with the travel agency conclusion in the article (I value my evening for more than 10 euro) but also with Remco that they haven’t proven their objectivity in the past.
Regarding the books: that’s what I love about Amazon Kindle! One-click and ten seconds later you’re reading your book conveniently at your Kindle or iPad. That’s good, cheap (if you buy in US vs EU prices definitely) and FAST. Takes more time to walk over to the cash register in your book store than to buy one click online! :-)
I actually went to a travel agency for exactly that reason. But I think its just a shame that online booking is so hard. Ever tried booking train tickets to a place that is not a major capital in Europe? The people at treinreiswinkel (Dutch website) are capable of it, but they, nor someone else, aren’t actually offering it online. Somehow I think that the tools available at the travel agencies are still better than we have acces to via the web.
I don’t agree to your Amazon example, which is quite efficient in my opinion. Ever tried finding a book you actually wanted in a physical bookstore? You would probably have to ask (and hope they’ve got it in stock). And then all the distraction at these stores. It can be more fun way of browsing, however, but that’s an entirely different story.
The amazon.com analogy is pretty stupid. Why don’t you read a book instead of browsing amazon? Umm I haven’t got one that’s why I’m browsing amazon. And if you where to go to a bookshop you would spend far longer browsing and have less of a chance to find anything.
What I’m theorizing on my post is that you actually spend a lot more time browsing Amazon than reading actual books. it might be true for you, but I’m pretty sure it is true for a lot of people.
I’ve never used a travel agent. It may take me longer to use an online agency but in the end I get what I want. Not what the travel agent is pushing that week.
Your statement about wasting time at Amazon browsing instead of just buying the book is more a reflection of your distracted nature than about the shopping process. I often can’t find what I am looking for in a bookstore requiring me to wait in line to ask someone for help. That waste time. Then I wait in a longer line to buy. That waste time. Then the drive back home. That wastes time.
From Kindle for iPad I can instantly buy a book and start reading it. Done.
I do not buy your argument that most people use time shopping on Amazon but you clearly do.
I agree o the Kindle and iPad. I almost finished reading my second book and the ability to read first and pay later is amazing. You might very well be completely right about Amazon. The point I’m trying to make is that if you invested 3 hours in getting a discount of €10, what exactly did you gain…
This is what I have been saying for years. People think that they save money even if it means you need to spend too much time. I always calculate these things when I am buying something online. Does it worth, how much money will I save and how much time do I need to spend to buy it? I always do this calculation automatically before buying something online, or from shop.
Time is money and valuable. Of course we can’t monetize every single second of our life, but even if you spend your free time to buy something cheaper, that will effect your productivity. At least it does in my case, because I could spend that time with my girlfriend or do something fun and in turn, it may increase my productivity.
I am not saying we have to save as much time as we can, but balance is important.
I agree with you, however we must add the value of your time (= user time) in this equation.
If someone is retired, he possibly have a Lot of time to browse books in Amazon, or Google the best offer in the Internet etc. However, if someone works 12 hour a day, is understandable that his free time is scarcer, thus is more valuable to him. This is not only applicable to the internet, but to everything in general. I.e. many people don’t “cook” anymore simply because they prefer to use their “scarce” time on more fun things (like go to a restaurant ;) after all, in a world of abundance, the more scarce thing is time: after all, we don’t live forever, or do we?..
Very very good point. Maybe we should put that into a formula and publish it so you can figure out if something is worth your time. :-)
Ok, done ;)
It might also be mentioned that one of the reasons for the economic problems every small town is facing is the loss of small retail businesses which could employ a lot of your neighbors. Buying online is a more efficient business model because there is much less over head but that also means less jobs and less money going back into your local economy. Not to mention online companies will sway you into buying what they want you to buy as much as a local business will but with out face to face contact. Do you think this makes them MORE concerned with serving you well?
Doing it yourself all the middle men are doing for you in exchange for a few bucks seems an added workload for you but at least you get to know the hard work that has to be done by these middle men. You see them working for it and think it is very for them, hell yeah it is easy for them because it is what they have been doing on a daily basis and they know what to do. For God’s sake, to keep the internet going, spend some money inside while you have fun doing other things.