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The MYSTERY of Online Movie Ticketing

By Nishant Baghel on 20 Comments / 3946 views

I have been wrestling with this question for a couple of days and finally I thought why not ask the esteemed community.

BookMyShow seems to have no competition in the Online Movie Ticketing market at all. I mean no Number 2. An industry with only one player is surprising, since you look at the size of the Indian Market.

Also, whatever small sites you have, they don’t sell tickets from Multiplex partners that BookMyShow sells from.

I don’t think their is a major barrier to entry to this industry, then why have we seen no one try to challenge BookMyShow’s supremacy. It is also something to wonder because Online Ticketing is also one of the better e-commerce industries even if you look at travel or anything.

Why do you think we have only 1 player.

Insights will be appreciated.

Thanks.

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20 Comments

  1. Interesting. Trying to read up on it. Hopefully I get an answer 😉

  2. Hi Nishant,

    there are other players too like ticketpleasse.com, then all the multiplex have their own sites where you can buy the tickets.

    Today there is no product/service which has a monopoly. 

  3. There is a kyazoonga.com/.

    But movie ticketing isn’t much of a lucrative market as you need to charge extra to make your money as an online movie ticketing company and that wasn’t so easy. With 33% of the movie ticket price as entertainment tax and the rest distributed between theatre, distributor and producer, no one will pay the ticketing guy from their share. Now charging extra it is almost becoming impossible https://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-06-14/mumbai/39975….

    On top of it, large multiplexes started their own portals which did not charge extra. If you see on the Google Play store, movie booking apps of all multiplexes have been made by BMS itself. So it is not a market worth challenging.

  4. there is ticket please, also online movie booking does not give much profit, mostly the convenience charge is what this companies get, out of that if you reduce the payment gateway fees, this becomes to thin margin. I think theaters get some % cut from this as well.

    Also i have read about a recent ruling from HC which is banning this convenience charge in Maharashtra i think. Thus making this business less profitable.  

  5. Pranay,

    HC hasn’t ruled anything. It has merely asked theatres and BMS to respond to a PIL. Maharashtra Government, vide a GR in April 2013 has disallowed this convenience charge. Theatres don’t get a cut from convenience charge.

  6. thanks for the correction, changing the text

  7. Omkar you are correct that the revenue is the “Convenience Charge” that a portal like BookMyShow asks for. But you are selling sm1 else’s inventory and making about 15 rupees per ticket, I don’t think it is that bad a business.

    BookMyShow was also acquired for about 100 crores if I am correct. If it wasn’t worth it why would sm1 pay 100 crores. I am trying to read on it myself, and even I don’t have an answer but I really don’t think it is not a market worth pursuing.

  8. Pranay ticketplease and the rest have very small partners. They get the Convenience Charge but theaters don’t get a cut out of that. As I wrote in an earlier reply “But you are selling sm1 else’s inventory and making about 15 rupees per ticket, I don’t think it is that bad a business.”

    BookMyShow was also acquired for about 100 crores if I am correct. If it wasn’t worth it why would sm1 pay 100 crores. I am trying to read on it myself, and even I don’t have an answer but I really don’t think it is not a market worth pursuing.

  9. Omkar I just checked, even PVR on thr website charges an extra Convenience fee. Thr has to be sm other reason! 

  10. Yep, that’s right. See BMS came in, there was no computerised system for booking tickets at the box offices. BMS came in with a machinery, like the computerised ticket booking system and consoles installed at theatre box offices, so that actual ticket condition was available to the website in real time. Remember Ticket Point, where movie tickets could be booked at neighbourhood stores. They charged 10 Rs convenience. They called the theatre every time a customer walked in and then handbooked tickets.

    When BMS came in, it put in that machinery and that expense was huge. Most of the ticketing system at theatres is of BMS. Now if you want to come in as a second player, imagine the expense of putting another machinery, ensure it APIs with BMS, and then recover investments. Not a lucrative scenario.

    And now with Maharashtra government disallowing convenience charge, it’s gonna be challenging.

  11. Yup that would be a major thing.. if the API’s do not allow any other

  12. Go to the mobile booking apps of Fun repulic, Fame, Inox, Big Cinemas. And see who has made the apps. Its Big tree entertainment. You know who that is; BookMyShow. 

    How will you plug into the theatres booking system when most have them are managed by softwares supplied and synced with BMS? 

  13. I agree but ticketpleaseis selling bigcinema’s etc.

  14. The answer is same as why not many wannabe redbus will be there- because the inventory of bus-operators who matter and who have the “money” have already tied their backend inventory system with redbus. In this case of BMS here, the leading exhibitors have the inventory tieup with BMS, which makes anyone cutting-in a tough tough task. Why would a hall, which is getting moolahs from BMS would agree to share its inventory with you. Only those cinemas might agree to be partnering with more than one gateway who are not having enough footfall into their theatres.

    my rs 1.18 (2 cents @ todays fx rate)

  15. No convenience charge visible on PVR for Pune atleast.

  16. Akhil, when was BookMyShow acquired and who paid 100 crores? What’s your source?

  17. I seriously do not think there is room for another player in the market.

    BMS has already gained direct access to all cinema chains.

    What value addition would you be able to provide the end consumer? If you cannot differentiate from BMS, you will end up be a copy cat, follower and not an industry leader.

    BMS has already penetrated enough and has got a high recall value.

    A cinema chain will give you access to their inventory only when you can give them something in return as well. So, if you are able to do that, gaining access to them should not be that difficult. But the questions is, where will you generate traffic from?

  18. The major source of Revenue for BMS is not from sales of movie tickets. Its ADS !! I recently paid close to 1.5 lacs for a banner ad campaign to BMS. Consider a fact that if I am an advertiser and I try and link up my product to a movie (which all the MNC’s have started doing), advertising on BMS gets me the max eyeballs. Go check out the site, select a movie and then click on check out, you will only see 1 ad at the centre and the remaining site blacks out. They have multiple inventories in BMS. During IPL, BMS was charging close to 30 lacs for a banner ads to companies if they wanted a space in the IPL ticket booking section. I think they recover their money very well. 

  19. I guess Joseph have summed it up well!!

  20. I realized a month back(after a 5 month hiatus for movies) that BMS and all other multiplex sites have stopped charging convenience charges. Whether its only for Mumbai or ROI also I am not sure.

    I guess BMS seems to be a monopoly due to its first mover advantage and that its widely popular. 

    Also they have expanded their portfolio with events, sports etc.

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