Offering live event tickets to employees sounds like the ideal job perk. Unfortunately, many companies lack the tools and resources to effectively manage ticket purchasing and distribution. Over time, these issues contribute to a staggering problem in the world of corporate ticket sales — up to 47% of all purchased tickets go to waste.
Most companies can’t afford to throw away thousands of dollars on unused event tickets, but reselling is confusing and frustrating. With so many merchants, resellers, and online platforms in the game, it’s difficult to know how to set a fair price and recoup costs.
The Problem With Selling Unused Tickets
When executives invest in live event tickets but employees don’t claim them, the company then needs to sell those tickets to avoid losing money. The downside is that most companies and employee managers:
- Don’t know where to sell unused tickets online
- Don’t know how to monitor the sale effectively and safely
- Aren’t sure how to set fair prices that will actually lead to sales and maximize the return on investment
- Aren’t confident in avoiding scams or shady purchasing platforms
Plus, every game and live event ranks differently. There’s far more demand for a bunch of stars playing on Friday night than for a losing team playing on Tuesday. Understanding the nuance and popularity of any given event is critical for achieving high resale value, but corporate leaders simply don’t have the time to monitor these details.
All this ambiguity makes the reselling process much harder than it should be. To resell successfully, sellers have to find a middle ground when it comes to finding the right buyers, reaching a fair price, and closing a deal.
Why the Highest Price Possible Matters
Reselling tickets for the highest price possible keeps companies from losing money on those unused tickets. For example, Dallas Cowboys season tickets cost, on average, $500 per seat per game. If a company can’t resell four unused seats, that’s a loss of $2,000 on one event.
If a company can recover some of these ticketing losses, they might reinvest the money into events that more employees want or are able to attend.
Company Sales vs. Individual Sellers
Selling tickets as a company involves several considerations that individual sellers don’t have to address.
- Consider how much time it will take someone in your company to successfully sell the tickets. Will the process take time away from more important responsibilities?
- As a company, determining how to receive payment is more complex than for single-sale individual tickets. Factor in additional complexity for accounting procedures related to processing ticket resale income. Are there any bookkeeping or tax considerations to make?
- Will staff members need to spend time over the weekend monitoring, selling, or organizing ticket sales? Resales may not always take place during business hours.
Because of these concerns, many businesses outsource some or all of their ticket reselling responsibilities. Not only does working with a ticketing provider free up valuable internal resources, but it’s also helpful for eliminating mistakes and preventing transaction errors.
How to Accurately Determine Resale Price
Know Your Goal
Determining the best resale price comes down to defined goals. Do you hope to make a profit, get your original investment back, or simply minimize the loss?
When trying to make a profit, the initial resale price will be set higher than the original purchase price. However, profiting from ticket resales is difficult and frequently requires more thorough research into what the original ticket package or seasonal subscription permits.
Recovering your initial investment, or a percentage thereof, is often a simpler process that gets your tickets sold earlier.
Set Realistic Expectations
View events through an objective lens to understand buyer demand and intent. A team’s win-loss record or the popularity of a certain performing artist can greatly impact the price at which you can expect to resell. Additionally, know that VIP packages and add-ons rarely translate into the resale price, and some perks are lost during the transfer.
Time Your Sale Well
The ideal time to earn the most money from a resale is when general sales go public. You can often still get a good price two to three weeks (minimum) before an event’s start date, but within 48 hours of the event, ticket values plummet.
Consider Location Demand
Demand for your ticket location and availability of specific seating sections are crucial factors. Upper and lower deck experiences can vary drastically and won’t have equal pricing pull.
Resell Your Tickets With Confidence
Once you’ve set the price for tickets, there are still a few more steps involved. Collecting payment, making delivery, and following specific ticketing platform guidelines are each highly involved processes.
Fortunately, Ticketnology can take on the burden of corporate ticket sales and seamlessly manage these time-consuming tasks for our clients. Ticketnology helps clients to:
- Assess ticketing and live event goals
- Determine a workable price based on event timing, venue, and buyer demand
- List on hundreds of ticket sites, reaching every possible buyer
- Monitor and adjust pricing based on timing and activity
- Deliver tickets to buyers and get paid on time
Not only is it possible to avoid wasted corporate tickets, but it’s also realistic to leave stressful and frustrating ticketing sales behind.
Book a Ticketnology demo today to resell with confidence and recoup your investment in unused tickets.