Research Project:PriceLine Singapore

Priceline.com is an example of a B2C transaction broker e-commerce business model. That it does not actually own any of the item on sales but merely acting as a transaction agent intermediary between the seller and the buyers. It operates completely online with no physical shopfront in operating the online business. It also provides e-commerce pricing system that enables consumers to use the internet to save money on products and services. It offers its customers the ability to purchase travel services in a more traditional, price-disclosed manner. The online products include traveling, airline tickets, hotel rooms, car rentals, vacation packages and cruises. Its services basically provide for travelling all around the world. It even provides every country's city guide for easy travel.

Its major competitors include AsiaRooms.com, all-hotels.com, lastminute.com, farecompare.com and etc.

The payment scheme used here is by credit cards such as Visa / Maestro /American Express / MasterCard / Diners Club .

The design of this website is quite user-friendly and descriptions are very clear. For example, when booking for flights. users can specifically indicate their ideal dates for departure and arrival,from which airport, to which airport,seating class and etc.

The strength of this business is that it even allows you greater discounts by naming you own price and bidding for it. This flexibility allows users to be able to spend within their budget and yet getting what they want. It also allows reduced information asymmetry between travel businesses and users and they get to compare prices between priceline.com and that of its competitors. By having ecommerce, it also increases the richness of the business concept as now, users can even get to watch videos and photos of their e.g. preferred hotel room layout,comparison of sceneries in different countries. By going through this one-stop transaction hub, users get to save on their transaction cost by just clicking away and paying via credit cards, rather than having to travel down to travel agencies and booking in person. This website can also reduce intermediation by acting as an intermediator between hotels and users, so as help user rid the hassle of having to liaise directly to every hotels,every travel companies.