So this is interesting, but not totally surprising.
One of the things (I think) that people want to do when marketing a show is get people to book in advance - not just because that gives you money and numbers early, but because if someone see a show advertised and thinks "that looks interesting, but it probably won't sell out, so I'll just get a ticket on the door" then a lot of the time when the night comes around they then say "fuck it, I'm just going to the pub instead". Making people pay money - and I think even a small amount of money would do - for a ticket means they've made a commitment to going to see the show, and are therefore less likely to not bother to turn up. If you are keeping track of the money, then money taken on the door is just as good as money taken in advance, but money not taken on the door because they didn't go is not as good as money taken in advance.
Conversely, when you're giving tickets away for free, advance booking is difficult, because anyone who things "that looks interesting" can grab a ticket just in case, and are then in no danger of "missing out" if it sells out, but are just as likely to not bother going as someone who hadn't bought a ticket at all.
If you're absolutely committed to giving your tickets away for free - and I understand why you might want to do that - and you don't want people to have to drive across town only to find the queue on the door is a mile long and they don't get in - I'm not sure what the options are.
1. Charge a deposit with the booking, and return it when they show up? Unfortunately gets you involved with all the credit card processing fees, which won't get refunded.
2. Name and shame the no shows? You'd need scanners for access control then, and it would be very embarrassing if you let someone in without scanning them and then accused them of wasting a ticket.
3. Make getting the tickets a bit more of an effort. How about a lottery? So you've got 400 seats for the White Whale, and more than 400 people who say they want to go (because it sold out). Instead of just giving the free seats away first-come first-served, you could collect names, and then when either X times as many people have registered as you have seats, or there's only Y days left before the performance (X = 2 or 3, Y = 7 or 14?) you do the draw. That way, people who registered and "Win" tickets feel more special for having won them. And I think that this might make them more likely to use the tickets than if they just got them for free.
I like 3. And the other benefit to 3 is that there's a built in cooling off period, so if you tell someone they've won a ticket, then it's the ideal time for them to say "actually, I'm not that fussed", and you can easily roll the dice again and give it to someone else.
Friday, 5 September 2014
Wednesday, 27 November 2013
Using the power of the secondary market for good.
So this puts lots of things together at once. It'll be a bit long before you get to the punchline. Sorry.
I was reading http://thebryonykimmings.tumblr.com/post/67660917680/you-show-me-yours recently, and whilst there are lot of bits in it worth thinking about and responding to, the one I want to talk about here is:
"4) I don’t do box office splits. Unless the gains are commercially sized its NEVER worth it. Stop asking me Dammit! I am a self employed person, have NO regular funding. I do not have a bank account with more than about £500 (if I am lucky) buffer before all hell breaks loose… so WHY would I ever do a box office split. Why should I, a lowly human being, take as much of a risk as an RFO venue. This is bollocks. I am amidst a negotiation at present that means if my show didn’t sell (heaven forbid!) I would walk away losing £1200 in 4 days. Remember my monthly wages is £1500, so why the fudge would I ever gamble that sort of cash with a venue. We all know that venues audience development teams are RARELY any good, if they exist at all. We all play to houses of 20 every once in a while because a venue is too stretched or just SHIT at marketing. So why would I trust THAT KIND OF DEAL. Stop asking me to share your risk in such an unfair way. I will do ALL I can to get bums on seats, I hate playing to empty rooms more than you hate hosting them… but if I live 200 miles away, don’t know a soul in your area and have no budget how can I really effect anything!"
Within the context of a blog post that could be (unfairly) summarised as "I've won awards! Who do I talk to about a pay rise?", one of the apparently often made suggestions is that she take some of the financial risk of putting on the production in return for a share of the profits instead of just a fixed fee. Whilst I can totally understand not being in a position as an artist to take that risk, I doubt that venues are all that keen to take it on either; regular funding helps keep the staff on the books full time and the lights and heating on, but I'd be surprised if it were generous enough to cover the costs of repeatedly picking the wrong show and not being able to sell it but having to pay the artists in full anyway. A show with lots of actors and a complex set that was simply expensive to tour and needed to charge a commensurate fee might be off putting to some venues.
Separately, I've been having conversations about the secondary market. I'm not keen on it, but there's a lot of money to be made whenever someone starts selling tickets with a face value well below their true market value. Now, the bugbear of the secondary market is the figure of the tout, who waits for a performance to obviously be a sell-out, and buys up the cheap tickets that have been subsidised by the arts council so that the poor can come to the theatre too, and then sells them on ebay for a 500% markup, and pockets all the cash whilst doing none of the work. Well, perhaps this doesn't happen much in the theatre. Mentally translate to rock and pop as appropriate, and your favourite band at the Brixton Academy and Led Zeppelin at the O2.
We still want to do dynamic pricing, ranging from a simple "Wednesday Matinees are cheaper than Saturday Evenings" all the way to the full Easyjet, once we find someone who wants to let us try it out and research what the appropriate pricing models are for their segment.
Whilst we aren't keen on building support for secondary markets as such into our system, and one of the benefits of dynamic pricing is that it helps reduce the margin that touts have to operate in, we have to deal with the problem that when the ticket prices vary dynamically and someone wants to do a completely legitimate "I'm ill and want to return tickets to the box office" or "can I exchange these Friday tickets for Saturday?" you get interesting problems if the tickets for Friday are now more expensive than the tickets for Saturday (but weren't when they were purchased), or if the tickets the customer wants to return are now worth more than they were when the customer originally bought them.
For example, it would be perfectly normal for a venue to say "We will take the tickets back and put them on sale again, but you will only get a refund (less 15% admin fee) if these tickets are actually sold". Which sort of means the tickets sort of belong to the original purchaser until they're resold, and if they aren't resold they might use them after all or give them to a friend. But if they are resold for twice the original price, who gets the extra? Might the original purchaser have a reasonable claim to some of that money?
Of course, touts don't always get it right. Sometimes they buy tickets for shows that don't sell out, and have to resell them at a loss. Which actually makes them quite helpful when they get it wrong; they're taking risk away from the promoter, and bearing a fraction of that risk themselves.
So:
When we put these three things together - the unwillingness of some potential promoters (viz. Bryony Kimmings) to take all of the financial risk, dynamic pricing, and the interaction between normal refund policies and dynamic pricing requiring a sort of built in secondary market to function properly - we end up with something that looks a bit like Kickstarter for plays. If you were trying to put your show on in venue X, and they didn't want to meet your full fee, and you want more money than the fee but don't want to assume all the risk that a box office split implies, it's possible that someone - not a tout, per se, let's just call them a supporter - might buy up 20 seats in advance - because they like you and your show and not because they're merely out to make money, so you don't have to face the risk of not being able to sell those seats. And other supporters buy advance tickets too, whether they think they will be willing or able to attend themselves or not, and you have that revenue for sure, and you might keep some other tickets back to sell yourself. And the supporters then return those tickets they don't want to use themselves to the box office to be resold, and if you're allowing dynamic pricing and the show sells out, then those tickets might end up being sold for more than was originally paid, and those supporters might make a modest amount of money - not for nothing, but in return for sharing a part of the risk that the show flops.
We end up with something that looks a bit like a 10 way box office split, with a guarantee to the artist and a first call to the venue and then with luck extra money to be spread around for everyone.
We end up with something that looks a bit like the debenture tickets offered by the Royal Albert Hall or Wimbledon, where the depenture holder, in return for their capital investment, have the right to sell "their" seats to whoever they like for as much as they like - or just put them back into the box office pool if they prefer; but on a smaller scale, for one performance at a time.
You could just do it all in Kickstarter, like Amanda Palmer, but that would take a lot of admin overhead of sorting all the monies out - better if the ticketing system just handles it. It gives an opportunity for the Members and Friends or whatever of the theatre to actually help with putting on a show, which if all goes well will not cost them anything, might make a little money, and if all goes badly they are presumably in a better financial position to bear that small loss of the value of one or two tickets than the artist/promoter is to bear the loss of the cost of putting on the entire night.
Many organisations have pre-sales periods exclusive to members already - one of the perks of membership. What if this process went on before the show was finally booked, and the membership base's financial help was a factor in deciding which shows a venue invited? It would make membership mean something more than a small discount at the bar, a newsletter you put in the bin, and priority access to the best seats.
I was reading http://thebryonykimmings.tumblr.com/post/67660917680/you-show-me-yours recently, and whilst there are lot of bits in it worth thinking about and responding to, the one I want to talk about here is:
"4) I don’t do box office splits. Unless the gains are commercially sized its NEVER worth it. Stop asking me Dammit! I am a self employed person, have NO regular funding. I do not have a bank account with more than about £500 (if I am lucky) buffer before all hell breaks loose… so WHY would I ever do a box office split. Why should I, a lowly human being, take as much of a risk as an RFO venue. This is bollocks. I am amidst a negotiation at present that means if my show didn’t sell (heaven forbid!) I would walk away losing £1200 in 4 days. Remember my monthly wages is £1500, so why the fudge would I ever gamble that sort of cash with a venue. We all know that venues audience development teams are RARELY any good, if they exist at all. We all play to houses of 20 every once in a while because a venue is too stretched or just SHIT at marketing. So why would I trust THAT KIND OF DEAL. Stop asking me to share your risk in such an unfair way. I will do ALL I can to get bums on seats, I hate playing to empty rooms more than you hate hosting them… but if I live 200 miles away, don’t know a soul in your area and have no budget how can I really effect anything!"
Within the context of a blog post that could be (unfairly) summarised as "I've won awards! Who do I talk to about a pay rise?", one of the apparently often made suggestions is that she take some of the financial risk of putting on the production in return for a share of the profits instead of just a fixed fee. Whilst I can totally understand not being in a position as an artist to take that risk, I doubt that venues are all that keen to take it on either; regular funding helps keep the staff on the books full time and the lights and heating on, but I'd be surprised if it were generous enough to cover the costs of repeatedly picking the wrong show and not being able to sell it but having to pay the artists in full anyway. A show with lots of actors and a complex set that was simply expensive to tour and needed to charge a commensurate fee might be off putting to some venues.
Separately, I've been having conversations about the secondary market. I'm not keen on it, but there's a lot of money to be made whenever someone starts selling tickets with a face value well below their true market value. Now, the bugbear of the secondary market is the figure of the tout, who waits for a performance to obviously be a sell-out, and buys up the cheap tickets that have been subsidised by the arts council so that the poor can come to the theatre too, and then sells them on ebay for a 500% markup, and pockets all the cash whilst doing none of the work. Well, perhaps this doesn't happen much in the theatre. Mentally translate to rock and pop as appropriate, and your favourite band at the Brixton Academy and Led Zeppelin at the O2.
We still want to do dynamic pricing, ranging from a simple "Wednesday Matinees are cheaper than Saturday Evenings" all the way to the full Easyjet, once we find someone who wants to let us try it out and research what the appropriate pricing models are for their segment.
Whilst we aren't keen on building support for secondary markets as such into our system, and one of the benefits of dynamic pricing is that it helps reduce the margin that touts have to operate in, we have to deal with the problem that when the ticket prices vary dynamically and someone wants to do a completely legitimate "I'm ill and want to return tickets to the box office" or "can I exchange these Friday tickets for Saturday?" you get interesting problems if the tickets for Friday are now more expensive than the tickets for Saturday (but weren't when they were purchased), or if the tickets the customer wants to return are now worth more than they were when the customer originally bought them.
For example, it would be perfectly normal for a venue to say "We will take the tickets back and put them on sale again, but you will only get a refund (less 15% admin fee) if these tickets are actually sold". Which sort of means the tickets sort of belong to the original purchaser until they're resold, and if they aren't resold they might use them after all or give them to a friend. But if they are resold for twice the original price, who gets the extra? Might the original purchaser have a reasonable claim to some of that money?
Of course, touts don't always get it right. Sometimes they buy tickets for shows that don't sell out, and have to resell them at a loss. Which actually makes them quite helpful when they get it wrong; they're taking risk away from the promoter, and bearing a fraction of that risk themselves.
So:
When we put these three things together - the unwillingness of some potential promoters (viz. Bryony Kimmings) to take all of the financial risk, dynamic pricing, and the interaction between normal refund policies and dynamic pricing requiring a sort of built in secondary market to function properly - we end up with something that looks a bit like Kickstarter for plays. If you were trying to put your show on in venue X, and they didn't want to meet your full fee, and you want more money than the fee but don't want to assume all the risk that a box office split implies, it's possible that someone - not a tout, per se, let's just call them a supporter - might buy up 20 seats in advance - because they like you and your show and not because they're merely out to make money, so you don't have to face the risk of not being able to sell those seats. And other supporters buy advance tickets too, whether they think they will be willing or able to attend themselves or not, and you have that revenue for sure, and you might keep some other tickets back to sell yourself. And the supporters then return those tickets they don't want to use themselves to the box office to be resold, and if you're allowing dynamic pricing and the show sells out, then those tickets might end up being sold for more than was originally paid, and those supporters might make a modest amount of money - not for nothing, but in return for sharing a part of the risk that the show flops.
We end up with something that looks a bit like a 10 way box office split, with a guarantee to the artist and a first call to the venue and then with luck extra money to be spread around for everyone.
We end up with something that looks a bit like the debenture tickets offered by the Royal Albert Hall or Wimbledon, where the depenture holder, in return for their capital investment, have the right to sell "their" seats to whoever they like for as much as they like - or just put them back into the box office pool if they prefer; but on a smaller scale, for one performance at a time.
You could just do it all in Kickstarter, like Amanda Palmer, but that would take a lot of admin overhead of sorting all the monies out - better if the ticketing system just handles it. It gives an opportunity for the Members and Friends or whatever of the theatre to actually help with putting on a show, which if all goes well will not cost them anything, might make a little money, and if all goes badly they are presumably in a better financial position to bear that small loss of the value of one or two tickets than the artist/promoter is to bear the loss of the cost of putting on the entire night.
Many organisations have pre-sales periods exclusive to members already - one of the perks of membership. What if this process went on before the show was finally booked, and the membership base's financial help was a factor in deciding which shows a venue invited? It would make membership mean something more than a small discount at the bar, a newsletter you put in the bin, and priority access to the best seats.
Wednesday, 10 April 2013
Interesting summary
Of the dynamic pricing / secondary market problem from a Football point of view:
TICKET PRICES: OUR OWN WORST ENEMY
TICKET PRICES: OUR OWN WORST ENEMY
Monday, 8 April 2013
Credit Card Surcharges
You aren't allowed to mark up your credit card payment processing fees any more:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04/08/outlaw_surcharges/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04/08/outlaw_surcharges/
Wednesday, 27 February 2013
http://www.asa.org.uk/News-resources/Media-Centre/2013/Misleading-ticket-prices.aspx
Good news, but not quite far enough. The way the ticketing industry does business, with its spurious distinctions between "Outside" fees (fees added on top of the mythical "Face Value") and "Inside" fees (commission included in the "Face Value") remains pointlessly and unnecessarily complicated.
There might have been a time where the Outside fee went straight from the buyer to the box office to pay for the cost of sale, and the Inside commissions were between the venue and the promoter, but these days, they're all just money. Sometimes promoters will take a cut of the booking fee from the agent. Sometimes the agent takes a cut of the inside commission in addition to the booking fees. And there's a number called the "Face Value" in between that no one ever pays and no one ever gets and means nothing at all.
There's a cost that someone has to pay to get hold of a ticket. It's no business of the ticket buyer's where that money is going, and which bit goes to the agent and which bit to the promoter and which bit to the venue. They should just see a price, and pay it, or not.
Displaying the full price is a good start; changing the mindset away from ticket fees, booking fees, restoration levies, and so on a bigger job.
Good news, but not quite far enough. The way the ticketing industry does business, with its spurious distinctions between "Outside" fees (fees added on top of the mythical "Face Value") and "Inside" fees (commission included in the "Face Value") remains pointlessly and unnecessarily complicated.
There might have been a time where the Outside fee went straight from the buyer to the box office to pay for the cost of sale, and the Inside commissions were between the venue and the promoter, but these days, they're all just money. Sometimes promoters will take a cut of the booking fee from the agent. Sometimes the agent takes a cut of the inside commission in addition to the booking fees. And there's a number called the "Face Value" in between that no one ever pays and no one ever gets and means nothing at all.
There's a cost that someone has to pay to get hold of a ticket. It's no business of the ticket buyer's where that money is going, and which bit goes to the agent and which bit to the promoter and which bit to the venue. They should just see a price, and pay it, or not.
Displaying the full price is a good start; changing the mindset away from ticket fees, booking fees, restoration levies, and so on a bigger job.
Monday, 22 October 2012
Loyalty
I've been hearing people asking for Loyalty schemes for ticketing systems for years. I'd never been able to work out what they'd do with one once they got one.
I think the problem was that I immediately translated loyalty schemes into the one I knew best - supermarket schemes. I'm still not really sure how they're supposed to do any good, given that there's nothing to stop you from entrolling into all the schemes collecting points for all the supermarkets at once, but that's not the point. The basic model I had in mind was "collect points; spend points", as if the loyalty point were some kind of second rate currency, and the chances are the shows you could buy tickets for for points would be the slow-selling Wednesday matinees, and not the in-demand Friday evenings.
Keeping a points balance total is a pain. You get all sorts of nasty edge-cases, what if someone buys a ticket, claims the points, spends the points on a different ticket, and then gets a refund on the first one? People love hacking special offers and finding the loopholes; the famous hoover flights fiasco a case in point.
And whilst this model clearly works for some industries, I couldn't work out how it would drive sales to theatres and venues and other live events. Why would you buy a ticket to something you didn't really care about seeing, in order to get points, to spend on something else that you do want to see? You'd buy the tickets for the things you wanted, and whilst points might be nice, they're not going to make you see an extra show, or choose to see a show you don't like so much at venue A over a show you prefer at venue B. Supermarket loyalty points work when you're selling commodities, and when it's just as easy to pop to the shop down the road instead; as with all commodities, all that matters is the price, and the points get factored into that.
I thought this was how Air Miles worked too - and to some extent they do - until Andrew mentioned to me why he cared about Air Miles. It's not because you might spend them on a free flight someday, it's because if you collect enough of them, you start to get "Silver"status and free upgrades and access to the lounge and the perks and so on. I guess I never took enough flights to find out =)
And suddenly this makes sense, in the context of selling tickets for live events. There's no need to keep a balance, and invent ways to "spend" points. We just need to run a calculation, say, every night, and look at your purchase history for, say, the last 6 months. And if you've done enough stuff with the venue in that time-frame, then we'll give you a membership level for free. It might be different to the normal membership that we sell; it might be the same (though I think it should be different, see below). It could give priority booking periods, or money off tickets. It might just come with a special hat. It doesn't matter; if you loyally attend lots of shows, you're given something... and if you stop going, it gets taken away again.
And that's where I can see it driving sales. You email someone and say "come and see one more show before the end of the month, and you'll get a free membership for 6 months", and what you're really saying is "you're the kind of person who goes to the theatre a lot and supports the arts, and that's a good thing". And I can totally imagine someone making the effort to see an extra show, because that's them making a statement about themselves and their values. You email someone and say "your free membership will lapse unless you see one more show before the end of the month", and you're really saying "You've stopped being the kind of person who goes to the theatre a lot. What happened?", and they'll come back to prove you wrong. Instead of the supplier trying to buy the customer's loyalty with nectar points, the perk becomes a status symbol that the customer can't directly buy at all - they have to PROVE your loyalty to the theatre before being allowed. And at that point it becomes something people take pride in and work for and keep up; the opposite of all those unclaimed air miles. And the threat of having that status taken away again should work brilliantly to motivate people to take a chance and see that extra show.
TLDR version:
All items purchased are assigned a loyalty value (configurable calculation based on ticket price)
Every night, the loyalty values of purchase for the last $daterange are added up.
Accounts "near" the threshold are emailed telling them they're nearly there.
Accounts over the threshold have a membership status automatically applied to their account for $daterange2
Accounts qualified once and remain below the threshold for $daterange2 lose the benefit, and will get the normal "your membership is about to expire" reminders.
I think the problem was that I immediately translated loyalty schemes into the one I knew best - supermarket schemes. I'm still not really sure how they're supposed to do any good, given that there's nothing to stop you from entrolling into all the schemes collecting points for all the supermarkets at once, but that's not the point. The basic model I had in mind was "collect points; spend points", as if the loyalty point were some kind of second rate currency, and the chances are the shows you could buy tickets for for points would be the slow-selling Wednesday matinees, and not the in-demand Friday evenings.
Keeping a points balance total is a pain. You get all sorts of nasty edge-cases, what if someone buys a ticket, claims the points, spends the points on a different ticket, and then gets a refund on the first one? People love hacking special offers and finding the loopholes; the famous hoover flights fiasco a case in point.
And whilst this model clearly works for some industries, I couldn't work out how it would drive sales to theatres and venues and other live events. Why would you buy a ticket to something you didn't really care about seeing, in order to get points, to spend on something else that you do want to see? You'd buy the tickets for the things you wanted, and whilst points might be nice, they're not going to make you see an extra show, or choose to see a show you don't like so much at venue A over a show you prefer at venue B. Supermarket loyalty points work when you're selling commodities, and when it's just as easy to pop to the shop down the road instead; as with all commodities, all that matters is the price, and the points get factored into that.
I thought this was how Air Miles worked too - and to some extent they do - until Andrew mentioned to me why he cared about Air Miles. It's not because you might spend them on a free flight someday, it's because if you collect enough of them, you start to get "Silver"status and free upgrades and access to the lounge and the perks and so on. I guess I never took enough flights to find out =)
And suddenly this makes sense, in the context of selling tickets for live events. There's no need to keep a balance, and invent ways to "spend" points. We just need to run a calculation, say, every night, and look at your purchase history for, say, the last 6 months. And if you've done enough stuff with the venue in that time-frame, then we'll give you a membership level for free. It might be different to the normal membership that we sell; it might be the same (though I think it should be different, see below). It could give priority booking periods, or money off tickets. It might just come with a special hat. It doesn't matter; if you loyally attend lots of shows, you're given something... and if you stop going, it gets taken away again.
And that's where I can see it driving sales. You email someone and say "come and see one more show before the end of the month, and you'll get a free membership for 6 months", and what you're really saying is "you're the kind of person who goes to the theatre a lot and supports the arts, and that's a good thing". And I can totally imagine someone making the effort to see an extra show, because that's them making a statement about themselves and their values. You email someone and say "your free membership will lapse unless you see one more show before the end of the month", and you're really saying "You've stopped being the kind of person who goes to the theatre a lot. What happened?", and they'll come back to prove you wrong. Instead of the supplier trying to buy the customer's loyalty with nectar points, the perk becomes a status symbol that the customer can't directly buy at all - they have to PROVE your loyalty to the theatre before being allowed. And at that point it becomes something people take pride in and work for and keep up; the opposite of all those unclaimed air miles. And the threat of having that status taken away again should work brilliantly to motivate people to take a chance and see that extra show.
TLDR version:
All items purchased are assigned a loyalty value (configurable calculation based on ticket price)
Every night, the loyalty values of purchase for the last $daterange are added up.
Accounts "near" the threshold are emailed telling them they're nearly there.
Accounts over the threshold have a membership status automatically applied to their account for $daterange2
Accounts qualified once and remain below the threshold for $daterange2 lose the benefit, and will get the normal "your membership is about to expire" reminders.
Saturday, 7 April 2012
Limited Availability
Just talking to myself here, figuring out how this is going to work.
We need to be able to limit how many tickets someone can buy, because otherwise the touts buy up hundreds then try to resell them.
Fair enough.
But it breaks down into lots of different use cases, and I want to be clear I'm catching them all.
1. Limit number of tickets per order, for a given product.
You've got something that's going to sell fast, but you aren't too concerned about fraud. 6 tickets per order, nothing to stop anyone buying another order.
2. Limit number of tickets per account, for a given product.
You're a bit more worried about people coming back for another order, so you want the quantity limit to be per account.
3. Limit number of tickets per delivery address / billing credit card, for a given product.
You're even more worried that people will be buying as many tickets as they can for resale, so you want to limit the tickets per delivery address or credit card, across accounts.
4. Limit number of tickets for a given show
It's not just per product, you've got 5 performances to sell, and you want a maximum number of tickets sold across all the performances.
5. Limit number of tickets at a given discount
There's no limit in general, but a customer can use their "Membership" discount on at most 2 tickets - themselves and a guest - and the rest have to be full price.
6. Limit number of tickets at a given discount, AND the total number of tickets
A customer can have at most 5 tickets, of which at most 1 can be at the membership discount.
So the problems are:
Q. How to we define whether the limits are per product, or per group of products?
A. We could create a "ProductLimit" group thing, and all products that reference the same ProductLimit share a counter... but that means that if we have 50 performances and the limit is per performance, we have to create 50 product limits, that are identical in every respect.
We could give the ProductLimit a property "Per Product", so that all products reference the same ProductLimit, but that limit can be either global (5 tickets per show) or individual (5 tickets per performance). That doesn't help if the requirement is "at most 5 tickets per performance AND at most 15 tickets across all performances".
We could give the ProductLimit two properties: MaxQuantity and MaxQuantityPerProduct, either of which are nullable.
And then it gets 10x more complicated because of the membership discount issue. If we just store the MaxQuantity in the DiscountScheme, then we can say "At most 2 tickets at the membership price", but what does that apply to? The order and just that product? The account, and all the performances in the show?
Right.
Ok, so we're going to have to add ProductLimitRules
Each rule will state:
1. Applies to products individually, or all products that share this product limit. "ProductLimitRuleShared"
2. Applies per: order / accounts / address + cc. "ProductLimitRuleScopeId"
3. Applies to Discount (i.e. "Child", though I struggle to imagine a show where you're allowed to buy at most two Child tickets and at most two Adult tickets, and aren't allowed to buy 4 Adult tickets). "DiscountId"
4. Applies to User Status (i.e. Membership). "UserStatusTypeId"
5. Maximum Quantity. "MaxQuantity"
We need to be able to limit how many tickets someone can buy, because otherwise the touts buy up hundreds then try to resell them.
Fair enough.
But it breaks down into lots of different use cases, and I want to be clear I'm catching them all.
1. Limit number of tickets per order, for a given product.
You've got something that's going to sell fast, but you aren't too concerned about fraud. 6 tickets per order, nothing to stop anyone buying another order.
2. Limit number of tickets per account, for a given product.
You're a bit more worried about people coming back for another order, so you want the quantity limit to be per account.
3. Limit number of tickets per delivery address / billing credit card, for a given product.
You're even more worried that people will be buying as many tickets as they can for resale, so you want to limit the tickets per delivery address or credit card, across accounts.
4. Limit number of tickets for a given show
It's not just per product, you've got 5 performances to sell, and you want a maximum number of tickets sold across all the performances.
5. Limit number of tickets at a given discount
There's no limit in general, but a customer can use their "Membership" discount on at most 2 tickets - themselves and a guest - and the rest have to be full price.
6. Limit number of tickets at a given discount, AND the total number of tickets
A customer can have at most 5 tickets, of which at most 1 can be at the membership discount.
So the problems are:
Q. How to we define whether the limits are per product, or per group of products?
A. We could create a "ProductLimit" group thing, and all products that reference the same ProductLimit share a counter... but that means that if we have 50 performances and the limit is per performance, we have to create 50 product limits, that are identical in every respect.
We could give the ProductLimit a property "Per Product", so that all products reference the same ProductLimit, but that limit can be either global (5 tickets per show) or individual (5 tickets per performance). That doesn't help if the requirement is "at most 5 tickets per performance AND at most 15 tickets across all performances".
We could give the ProductLimit two properties: MaxQuantity and MaxQuantityPerProduct, either of which are nullable.
And then it gets 10x more complicated because of the membership discount issue. If we just store the MaxQuantity in the DiscountScheme, then we can say "At most 2 tickets at the membership price", but what does that apply to? The order and just that product? The account, and all the performances in the show?
Right.
Ok, so we're going to have to add ProductLimitRules
Each rule will state:
1. Applies to products individually, or all products that share this product limit. "ProductLimitRuleShared"
2. Applies per: order / accounts / address + cc. "ProductLimitRuleScopeId"
3. Applies to Discount (i.e. "Child", though I struggle to imagine a show where you're allowed to buy at most two Child tickets and at most two Adult tickets, and aren't allowed to buy 4 Adult tickets). "DiscountId"
4. Applies to User Status (i.e. Membership). "UserStatusTypeId"
5. Maximum Quantity. "MaxQuantity"
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