Movie online ticket sales

Buying movie tickets online is not a novelty. Some organizations even predict that it will account for more than 50% of the total box office receipts. More and more third-party ticket buying platform was born, Ali and other giants have also influx of companies, which is sufficient to show the charm of this market. However, as in most emerging areas, the same business track, loss of profits is still the status quo of the online ticketing industry, a few cents a profit makes this industry can not even afford more price war. When Wanda cinemas are still relying on popcorn to make more money, how to earn money through special services has become a question that all online "gamers" are thinking about.

Reporter investigation

Film online ticket sales of gold "45 seconds"

"Transformers 4: Extinction rebirth" (hereinafter referred to as "Transformers 4") Pre-release, the streets of Beijing have been everywhere Guevara Life Network "ride" ads. In addition to hard-working publicity, the Guevara also launched for the film throughout the country, including the super sports car shuttle fans, theme visual hall recommendation and other special activities.

With the popularity of the Internet, especially the rise of the mobile Internet, the online booking platform represented by Guevara and Taobao has become the new "big family" of box office output. Even the cat's eye movie, officially launched in early 2013, hit 1.5 billion yuan last year.

Recalling the first presentation to the cinema manager movie online ticket sales business, Guevara Life Network co-CEO Zhang Xuejing admitted that most people were skeptical. On the one hand, the current domestic box office market was not as hot as it is today. On the other hand, fans did not have much trust in online virtual fare purchases. "At that time, the sales of movie tickets for the whole year (2010) were only about 17 million yuan. Today, when there is a film with great box office appeal, the sales of movie tickets for one day can surpass those of 2010. "

The reason why the movie online ticketing business will grow rapidly in less than five years is due to the insider's view that it has to be attributed to the "buy-out war" for nearly two years from 2010 to 2012, which not only allows more and more people to start Understand, trust the virtual platform, but also make the film online ticket for the first time successfully into the eyes of consumers.

Beijing Commercial Daily reporter found in an interview, now that the film online ticket sales, most fans the first reaction is convenient. Users through the Internet platform to complete the online seat selection, online payment two steps, you can use the verification code in the movie directly to the theater terminal before taking the ticket. In order to confirm the convenience of online movie ticket sales, Beijing Commercial Daily reporter conducted a special field survey.

Last Friday, the Hollywood film "Transformers 4" landed the first day of the National Cinema, 1:35 noon, a halls in Beijing Haidian District, the ticket office has lined up a long queue of fans waiting for tickets nearly 100 people. Mr. Wang, who was ranked in the first half of the team, told the Beijing Daily News reporter: "I came to buy tickets when it was less than 1 o'clock. I waited for half an hour and I finally had hope, but I estimated the good location of the latest one All gone. "

Subsequently, the Beijing Commercial Daily reporter on the queue for 20 tickets used by the fans were recorded one by one. Among them, the longest use of a fan is 3 minutes 07 seconds, with the shortest one is 51 seconds. The choice of film online ticket sales and self-ticket on the terminal fans, the shortest duration of only 6 seconds. Comparison of the two methods of the shortest time difference of up to 45 seconds.

In addition to fast outside, the movie online ticket another big advantage lies in cheap. Taking Transformers 4 currently being released as an example, a 3D movie ticket can cost as much as $ 130 if it is purchased in the traditional way, and it costs about $ 63 less than half the price when buying tickets online via movie.

Wang Chenfeng, a cinema manager who has had six years of experience, told Beijing Commercial Daily that the convenience and low prices are the two major characteristics of online movie ticket sales. This undoubtedly can easily attract the attention of young consumer groups. The young people around the age of 21 is precisely the main consumer groups movie. This shows that the movie online ticket market has great potential.

"For the cinema, the film online ticket sales in the future will even become the mainstream movie ticketing methods.Traditional ticket buying method is not only inefficient, but also consume a lot of manpower costs.But through cooperation with third parties, the terminal ticket machine The introduction of cinema not only provides good service to fans, but also reduces the cost of theater operations, "said Wang Chenfeng.

Industry Perspective

3 yuan service fee profit only 4 corner

A movie fan who uses a movie ticket server for online sales will find such a problem that the printed name "Service Charge 3RMB" will usually be printed on the bottom of the ticket. Beijing Commercial Daily reporter learned that in the face of popular movie release, the movie online ticket service providers daily sales even exceeded 10 million yuan, if the movie ticket price of 60 yuan, for example, the number of daily sales of movie tickets is about 160,000 Zhang, then the service provider received the service fee is 480,000 yuan. But the reality is like the outside imagination so "progressive gold" as good? Zhang Xuejing gave a negative answer.

At present, the domestic ticketing system itself is a very complex system, the box office statistics mainly by the Phoenix, Gypsophila ticketing system in charge. As a movie online ticket service providers, need to enter the ticketing system, cooperation with these specialized companies, and pay a service fee. According to Zhang Xuejing introduction, 3 yuan service fee of 1 yuan is to be paid to these cooperative companies. In addition, coupled with the information sent to the ticketing user prompted the cost of 3 yuan service fee of fixed costs up to 2.62 yuan. So the so-called profit is only 4 corners, and this is still not deducted for editing sms, system maintenance updates and other costs under the premise. If you deduct these, it simply is not lost.

In addition, the hardware equipment, a ticket terminal costs about 20000 yuan, the period will also involve the cost of routine maintenance, under normal circumstances, its service life is only about three years, and these Costs need service providers to bear. "In addition, the average movie ticket costs 4 cents on ticket paper, doubling the cost if you choose cardboard for ticket printing," said Zhang Xuejing.

Human cost is the biggest investment

Fixed expenses for day-to-day operations, but also any movie online ticket service providers need to pay a fixed operating expenses. However, except as mentioned above, the largest part of the company's operating expenses is the labor cost. Cat's eye movie-related head Xu Wu told the Beijing Commercial Daily reporter that online ticket sales are not just simple tickets sold online, during which they need to deal with more than one party, and finally involve the offline payment process. Get through all the links, and ensure that every link can work well together, can not do without a strong executive team.

Objectively speaking, the domestic movie online ticketing market is still in its infancy. Although more and more people are using movie online ticketing services, there is still a huge gap in user blanketing and a period of market cultivation. According to industry insiders told the Beijing Commercial Daily reporter, at present almost everyone is losing money to make money, well done to maintain the balance of payments, but also by looking for partners, continue to pull sponsorship, leveraging advertising costs to fill the high cost. Therefore, high input, low output, or even non-output, the situation of inverted money more difficult to be reversed in the short term. But even so, the huge market potential makes e-commerce bigwigs in the past two years began to enter the movie online ticket market.

The next three years the overall share or over 50%

Relevant statistics show that last year, including Guevara, Cat's Eye movie, time network, including online booking platform, has reached about 4 billion yuan market size, or even the largest cinemas than the domestic annual market share of Wanda cinema But also high. In Shanghai alone, the online ticket market share has reached 50%. The industry forecast this, the next three years, the overall online ticket market will be more than 50% of the total domestic box office market.

A few years ago, because the movie online ticket sales is still a new thing, so the whole market still can not talk about competition. However, since last year, with the continuous emergence of third-party companies and the strong entry of various capital markets, the industry competition is gradually entering a white-hot stage. At the same time, the entire movie online ticket has also been divided into two camps, namely, by Baidu, Taobao e-commerce camp, as well as by the Guevara Life Network, cat-eye movie led by the third party camp.

Because of the different characteristics of the two camps, there are also differences in the means of attracting audiences. Since July last year, following the release of a new version of App Maps Baidu map will be included in the movie ticket business, many websites, including Netease, Taobao, also began to get involved in the movie online ticket market. E-commerce camp relied on the inherent advantages of "wealthy", they love to play is "ultra-low-cost card." This year's Women's Day movie schedule, a number of electrical business is get together to launch a "3.7 yuan movie" activities for the period contributed 2 million movie tickets.

Although the third-party camp does not have strong capital to support it, it has consolidated and expanded its user base by launching derivative services and featuring offline activities. For example, parking has now become a headache for many moviegoers. As a service provider, you should think about asking the user which way to travel in advance and giving you travel guidance. In addition, some cinema halls are large nowadays. Users do not know which channel is going to be closer, the auditorium is dark, and if it is quite inconvenient to go the wrong way, they will show you the seat in the auditorium and give the line diagram Instructions.

It is reported that as of the end of June 2014, Guevara Life Network online seated more than 1000 theaters, widely distributed in nearly 200 cities nationwide, and the co-operation box office coverage of up to 60%. The cat's eye movie gives the latest data show that at present there is one for every eight tickets in the country is sold by cat's eye movie, some time ago released "Godzilla" 40% of the tickets are sold from cat's eye movie.

Relevant practitioners said this, "tycoon" e-commerce providers who have strong capital to enter a strong, it is bound to have a significant impact on the original service providers. E-business camp played by the ultra-low price card, the introduction of more consumer experience film online ticket service, but also to third-party camp caused by the diversion of users, but the price war into a protracted war, training users or should from the service , Content to start. So, in the future development process, the new members how to make good use of the hands of the capital, rather than simply by the low price lead attention? The old members how to deal with the challenges of capital, stable and continue to open up a new market share?

Market breakthrough

The first one: spelling theater coverage

As competition in the industry intensifies, it will be hard for movie online ticket service providers to remain permanently competitive if they remain focused on the word "cheap." The first is to take advantage of theater coverage. In terms of movie ticket sales service providers, if you want to occupy a certain market share in the market, one of the first difficulties you need to overcome is the theater. Wang Chenfeng told the Beijing Commercial News reporter: "The more theaters you can cover, the greater the voice you have in the market."

In response, Zhang Xuejing recalled that in 2010 Guevara was founded, the entire team encountered the biggest problem is to talk with the cinema cooperation. Although a long time ago there have been attempts to expand the movie online ticket sales business, but because the audience for the virtual electricity supplier this new consumption patterns do not meet, have failed. As a result, most of the cinemas were skeptical of ticket sales online at the time.

Especially in the past two years, with the rapid growth of the domestic movie box office market, audiences are increasingly in demand for the cultural consumption of movies. As a result, the coverage of service providers has become increasingly fierce.

The second measure: fight the ultimate service

It would be grossly wrong to assume that movie theater retains a dominance of the movie online ticketing business. Cinema coverage is just one of the cornerstone of the movie online ticketing business, which is like the first floor of real estate developers to cover the floor. But the final house can sell well, have to look at interior decoration, infrastructure and other "soft power." For movie online service providers, this soft power comes from services other than ticket sales. Xu Wu stressed: "Now the ticket market competition, although more intense, but as long as they can do a good job of service and user experience, you can become the winner."

In Zhang Xuejing view, if you want to do a good job movie derivative services online ticketing business, in addition to standing on the consumer point of view, the use of divergent thinking for the user to solve the problems in the viewing process to provide a better viewing experience, But also need to be advancing with the times, "With the rapid development of film technology, in addition to the IMAX outside, the 4D movie studio has begun to gradually enter the market.Therefore, we based on the investigation of theaters around the site launched on the home page ' Special effects hall 'theme. Depending on the type of film, suggest that users choose a different movie theater viewing in order to get the best audio-visual effects. "

The third measure: fight special activities

Since the beginning of this year, a number of e-commerce bigwigs, including Taobao, have spared no expense in lobbying the audience to watch movies at ultra-low prices. This has caused great concern in the industry and has made the movie online ticket truly welcome the so-called "Warring States Period." As more and more users choose, practitioners are also beginning to gradually try O2O mode in order to extend user viewing experience and expand user base.

Recently, a super sports car team fans to see "Transformers 4" news has aroused the concern of many fans. It is reported that, in order to this event, Guevara Life Network and an ultra-running club in Shanghai, prepared, including Lamborghini, Porsche 911, including five supercar, in the "Transformers 4" zero file premiere day, pick up ten Movie fans movie. "In addition, we also held similar events in other cities, such as a" Hornet "fleet in Hangzhou that is responsible for sending and receiving fans. Such a thematic viewing activities can make fans feel different viewing experience , But also allows users and service providers closer contact between, so as to enhance user viscosity.

Wang Chenfeng suggested: "Movie online ticket sales in the future will certainly become an important downstream industry chain film market, but in order to develop this piece of blue ocean, service providers need to be through multiple channels in parallel, while cultivating consumer spending habits, through a series of Derivative services, derivative business to gradually broaden their profit margins and consolidate the brand's influence. "

Beijing Commercial Daily reporter Lu Yang / text