Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Perfect. Well, I appreciate your time coming over here. We're over here as vendors at the big RV park conference. So I can't every single time. Ohce. But. But yeah, so we're just talking to a lot of folks around here, park owners, vendors, seeing what everybody's doing and kind of. So we'd like to learn about your business and kind of how you guys help RV park owners.
[00:00:19] Speaker B: Yeah, so we're essentially a booking engine. So we're coming out of Australia, New Zealand. So if you think about, you know, the world of Shopify, but think about this and like the world of Shopify, you get a site and you get a checkout funnel. And so that is our focus area. So like trying to get customers to convert.
[00:00:33] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: And so I think a lot of the, like, a lot of the, the technology on the market kind of ignores that. A lot of it is under the hood. So like when somebody has actually made the reservation and then you're trying to manage them.
[00:00:44] Speaker A: Yeah. There's like a little bit on Google Analytics, analytics side. But like we, we need to know conversions.
[00:00:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:00:48] Speaker A: So we're just talking to a park owner last night. He's like, I'm spending money on Google Ads. I'm coming here. I just don't know what's getting them over the table. He's trying to figure out where it's coming from.
[00:00:57] Speaker B: Yeah, just like this morning there, we're just interviewed or sorry. We just met with a few park owners and we showed them our analytical stack. And so we said, okay, this is like, you know, the, the campground, like what they're purchasing and this is the checkout funnel. And a lot of them has reacted to showing the drop off in the checkout funnel. So like seeing where people is actually dropping out of the journey is like, I've never seen that before.
[00:01:17] Speaker A: Yeah. And so we're like, very important.
[00:01:19] Speaker B: Well, for us it's 101. Right. If you think of.
I always use the example of like if you're working today in Amazon or ebay. So like retail, e Commerce, it's 101 basic stats. But the accommodation industry is, I'd say, a little bit behind that retail world. And so for us it's like, it's normal.
Yeah. And so I think they miss all of that, I guess you call it that data layer.
And so like that's leaving dollars on the table, essentially.
[00:01:44] Speaker A: Yeah. Because if you don't know where it's dropping off, then you don't know how to make adjustments. If you do know where it's dropping off. Why are they stopping at that checkout point? So you can address your website. You can try to figure it out, do some case studies, you can make some adjustments as you need, and then next thing you know, you got 10% more occupancy to make more money.
[00:02:00] Speaker B: The same with cabins. Like one thing that we do is like we track upsells. So for example, it's like you've chosen that cabin, but if you have another cabin, like let's just say for another $20 more expensive. So we'd say to the user, hey, for an extra $20, you know, you can get this.
[00:02:12] Speaker A: Right?
[00:02:12] Speaker B: And so you like those little prompts to pop. Yeah. And so like, but the reality is then, like, you think about it from a, from a retail e commerce strategy perspective, it was like, if we're selling a lot of that upsell, it's like, what if it turns into $25 upgrade?
[00:02:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:25] Speaker B: And so that data we feed back to the park owner and so therefore they like, I think they, they're missing a lot of that today because the technology is just not there. And that's where we, we essentially do this in Australia, New Zealand. But we're like, hold on a second. There's so many stuff similarities between the US RV markets and the Australian New Zealand market. So that's why this is also.
[00:02:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:44] Speaker B: Having a crack for the first time up here.
[00:02:46] Speaker A: I love it. I love it. Yes, it's outdoor hospitality. It's still the root of hospitality, whether it's a resort or whether it's an RV park or whether it's a, you know, tiny home community. So I mean the still, the point is, is that still hospitality, you got to cater to them. They have a lot of these businesses have a lot of safe hospitals.
[00:03:02] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We started out in hotel markets, so I'm X Expedia. We started off in the hotel market and then really quickly we started to see an Australian museum. So park owners were coming to us saying, hey, can you adopt it for us? And then.
[00:03:15] Speaker A: Right.
[00:03:15] Speaker B: So then when we got to see it, you know, like we say today we work with, you know, private islands and five star boutique hotels. And like some of the parks are more profitable. Yeah, some of the parks are just simply more profitable selling, you know, you
[00:03:26] Speaker A: know, it's my favorite asset class come first.
[00:03:30] Speaker B: And so. But we see the full stack. It's just like, I think there's just an opportunity to like tighten that a little bit more. So like, you know, if you're leaving money on the Table or you're losing a book into an Airbnb or an Expedia because they've come down the funnel.
[00:03:42] Speaker A: Yeah. I think there was a stat, I heard if your park said like 65% occupancy versus like 80, 85, you just doubled your net income.
[00:03:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:03:51] Speaker A: Because you got all the same basic expenses. But so like any kind of like improvements like you're talking about that can just push, push it just a little bit further, further, get a little bit better. You know, I think it's pretty powerful.
[00:04:01] Speaker B: The other thing is that, and I've had a few conversations this morning about park owners, people building parks, and, and nobody really considers the digital footprint in the sale or the purchase. And so I think we work in Australia, New Zealand with a lot of parks that like, they talk to us as like, what do you think this is worth? So for example, their Google, my business, their core website, their SEO, the number of users in the database. And so we'll put a monetary value on that. And so therefore. But it's not part of the sale agreement.
[00:04:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:28] Speaker B: Whereas like, if you think about this was like, digital's not going away.
[00:04:31] Speaker A: Right.
[00:04:32] Speaker B: And so if you're just buying the grudge.
[00:04:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:34] Speaker B: And so like if you acquire a user today of Google for a dollar, Data's new oil. Yeah. And in five years time, that's not going to be a dollar, it's going to be $5, $6 to acquire that same user. So we're trying to educate the market to say acquire them today, fill the first party data buckets and then use that to build lookalike audiences. And so therefore it will become a commodity that is sellable in the future.
[00:04:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:54] Speaker B: Whether you're in acquisition mode or whether you're in sell mode or flipping mode.
And so I think that is another example of where we see a massive gap in the market whether it's buying parks or selling parks.
[00:05:05] Speaker A: So that would be more of like someone like me that's getting involved in multiple parks versus somebody that's kind of building a one park retirement plan.
[00:05:11] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
But like tomorrow morning if you were like, have a park and sell it. Like if it was me buying the park, I'd say, okay, you got like half a million users in your database. To me I'm thinking that's worth X amount. But it's never considered as part of the actual sale agreement.
[00:05:27] Speaker A: It's always.
[00:05:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:05:30] Speaker A: So I mean, if, if it can't necessarily increase the, the, the sell of the, the price of the, of the property, it can definitely being able to share that information with your potential new buyer help it sell a lot easier, which might, you know, get the price that you want but, but really show it off. Because people don't show it off. People don't even talk about it. When you talk about buying and selling parts.
[00:05:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:05:51] Speaker A: They just go, what are your rent rolls?
[00:05:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:05:53] Speaker A: So I, I think that's pretty, pretty smart right there. Because if you are savvy person, you know, you're going to buy this park, clean it up and sell it two to five years, which is a popular cycle, then have that in mind from day one and then be like, so year five, when I'm ready to sell it, here's all the stuff that we've done digitally. Yeah. And so here's a silver, silver platter. Come buy my shit.
[00:06:12] Speaker B: Well, so the reality is, you know, even if you're not ready to use the data, we always say just get it anyway. Like the future, like we are evolving so fast. Therefore like if you capture all the data today in 5 years time and
[00:06:26] Speaker A: 10 years for ads or for predicting behavior.
[00:06:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:29] Speaker A: You know, all that stuff, like all
[00:06:31] Speaker B: that historical information will be valuable at some point even if you're not ready to use it or valuable to the next buyer or whatever it may be.
And the other thing is in order to do that we do things like fencing. So for example, if you look at.
Well, we do that as well, but more price fencing. So for example, everybody that we work with will like, we'll increase our prices by 2% and then say to the user, hey, give me your email address and I'll drop the price by 2%. And so therefore you are filling the buckets.
[00:06:55] Speaker A: Right.
[00:06:56] Speaker B: And so that's, that fencing idea is like, because then you have perceived deal. And then what we see from an A B testing perspective, so we test obviously 50% of users into one version, 50% of users into another version.
What we see is that they have a higher propensity to convert on a higher checkout because they've already perceived they've got a deal. Again, that's retail e commerce strategy right there.
But it's not been played out in this market, right?
[00:07:19] Speaker A: No, it's not.
[00:07:20] Speaker B: Yeah. And so that's where we're just like up here and excited to talk. But I think what we're doing here is a lot of education. I think that's one thing.
[00:07:27] Speaker A: I think I'm getting some education right now.
[00:07:30] Speaker B: So we do a lot of shows in Australia, New Zealand, we're going after this One to Thailand to do a show.
And I think just talking to the guys here this morning was like, I feel like we're spending more time talking about education. I was like, did you know? As opposed to, you know, down and deep in the weeds of conversion type conversation. Yeah, yeah.
[00:07:48] Speaker A: Well, I think. I think you're definitely serving a need. I think you're onto something and I think it's a matter of educating people and then seeing how you can help people have those case studies. And then, hey, if I can. If I can come in here, you hire us, come in here and I can improve your park, then, I mean, that's all you need.
[00:08:02] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And it's a, like, I think as well as, like, it's such a nice. I was talking to so many people, like, trying to get into the industry. It's like, you think of all the industries we could choose to work in, like, this is a nice industry.
[00:08:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:13] Speaker B: You know, RV parks, camps, parks. Like, it's families, it's people, Holiday and leisure, laid back. So, yeah, it's like the.
[00:08:19] Speaker A: Laid back.
[00:08:19] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
And then you're seeing that in a lot of the, like, the owners or the groups was like, they have that mentality as well. So it's like I've always said, like, back in my day and Expedia is like, I want to stay in the world of travel because it's like, it is a nice product to sell or to work with. And so, yeah, so now we're down focusing on parks.
[00:08:39] Speaker A: I love it. Yeah. Well, cool, man. Well, it looks like we got some guests rolling here for the conference, so I appreciate your time sharing some insight with. With you and I'd like to follow up with you afterwards and pick your brain a little bit more. But I appreciate your time coming out and talking with us.
[00:08:50] Speaker B: Thank you. Thanks for. Thanks for chatting. Cheers.
