Republished from https://medium.com/goibibo-backstage/reserve-at-0-pay-later-78214105d2d6
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Yet another first from the leading OTA. You can now reserve your room at goibibo for free and choose to pay at a later date.
We saw that our bookings were too skewed towards check-ins closer to the booking date, with bulk of the bookings happening for check-ins lesser than 48 hours away from the time of booking.
Not surprisingly, conversion for searches for later dates was less than average. We learnt from customers that they like to shortlist the property to stay during their next weekend getaway but prefer to complete the booking when the dates are close by.
We have inventory from over 35,000 properties that provide Free cancellation to our customers. We just connected this existing supply to the existing demand.
So, No need to wait till your better half agrees to your plan or collect money from your room mates before booking. You can lock the price with the ongoing offer and complete the reservation.
At goibibo, Now a user can plan and reserve for the new year weekend well in advance without having to pay anything through bank. As the due date approaches couple of days before the check in date, traveler can choose to complete the payment and confirm the booking. If not paid, we open up the inventory to the traveler making his last minute plans.
Impact
We saw that we started getting additional 10% bookings which were for later dates. This is how our bookings split looked like for instant payment and Reserve at ₹.0
