Three reasons why JetBlue’s eBay store is a genius move and why other airlines will follow

 

Selling air tickets by auction is nothing new. Airlines have done it in the past for one-off charitable causes, like Singapore Airlines’ first A380 flight. There are even sites dedicated to selling air tickets by auction, like Skyauction.com and Priceline.com.

But JetBlue Airways has once again demonstrated that it’s a leader when it comes to using the latest technologies to bring in more business. This time, they’ve began auctioning more than 300 round-trip flights and six vacation packages on eBay, and all of the offerings carry a starting price tag of five or ten cents plus taxes and fees. The auction will continue through Sept. 14.

[caption id="attachment_617" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="JetBlue eBay"][/caption]

There has been ample debate on leading airline forums on whether this move will work or not. The debates can go on forever, but here are three good reasons why this is a genius move by JetBlue and other smart airlines will follow in its footsteps.
1. There is no such thing as bad PR
JetBlue is good at creating buzz and has now tapped on probably one of the cheapest ways of methods of marketing – technology. Since the website’s launch, there has been many reports supporting or criticizing the move. Ultimately, it’s all leading to move potential customers landing on the JetBlue eBay store. As Guy Kawasaki puts it, there is no such thing as bad PR (an Inquirer report that rated his Truemors site as the worst on the net resulted in over 240,000 hits in a single day!).
2. More channels = more customers = more revenues
Leading brand management authority Sergio Zyman‘s definition of marketing success is to “sell more stuff, to more people, more often, for more money, more efficiently.” By launching a new selling channel via eBay, JetBlue will be reaching out to new types of potential customers who are probably younger and technologically savvy. Moreover, since eBay is a self-regulated system, the efficiency of selling tickets is bound to improve as well.