Do you ever wonder why the Final Four tickets you see on eSeats.com are the same as you see on other websites?
About five years ago ticket brokers began to use exchanges to share their tickets with other ticket brokers. Each one of the exchanges provide a feed to website owners that allow them to broadcast the tickets onto their site. So when you come to www.eSeats.com or www.ticketsnow.com you will see the same tickets. Another little known secret, most of the tickets you see on the website StubHub.com is actually coming from ticket brokers. Brokers generally mark up their tickets about 10% above what you will see these tickets on their site because StubHub.com charges 15% when your tickets get sold.
There are three popular exchanges that brokers use to sell their tickets the most popular being Event Inventory, Ticket Network and the third being Ticket Technology. These exchanges allow ticket brokers to dramatically increase their distribution of tickets which helps grow their sales to a much larger potential customer base of ticket shoppers. Additionally, the sales generated from other brokers carry less risk than when they sell tickets to end users because of possible credit card or fraud problems.
As a consumer it must be very difficult to determine which website is best to buy your tickets. My recommendation would be to limit your ticket purchases online to companies that have the following credentials.
- Member of the National Association of Ticket Brokers
- Member of the BBB is helpful but not essential.
- Over 5 years of business experience. This will help you avoid the fly by night companies.
- Customer service person in house. The trend is to outsource ticket fulfillment to a central processing center.
Once these criteria have been met, I suggest calling the company and asking them for advice with your ticket purchase. This will give you an indication as to whether or not they are customer oriented or not. If you end up having any issues with your ticket or the event being cancelled, it sure will help.
At the end of the day tickets are a commodity. What differentiates brokers are the service and integrity you get when there is a problem with your order. If and when that time happens, and it will, you’ll be glad you choose the right ticket broker.
Thanks for reading my blog.
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