IT’S interesting to note that, despite leading e-commerce transactions globally, travel and hospitality booking platforms have largely existed without this standard mechanism of online sales – the shopping cart.
This week, Agoda became one of the first online travel agencies to offer this functionality for its travel products with the aim of optimising trip planning and enhancing customer experience. Similar to the shopping cart experience on other e-commerce platforms, this new function enables travellers to add a selection of properties to the cart, with the option to either check out more than one reservation at once or leave them in the cart until next time.
Looking back, the absence of a shopping cart on travel platforms is something that has been brought up in the past. It may not seem like much, but the addition of a Shopping Cart is an indication that travel platforms are finally blending with their e-commerce counterparts in the retail scene.
Filip Filipov, Founder & CEO of atKairos, wrote this in 2017 (via Medium):
Yet, the simple shopping cart functionality — whereby you can shop around, put your products in a basket, leave it there for a while and check out for the same price in a day or a week — hasn’t really materialized as yet. This may be partially due to the industry’s constraints in terms of inventory, and to some extent also because of the industry’s innovative pricing models which command a different price at any given time for essentially the same product.
… think about air travel — direct flights or connecting services, changing in price and sometimes appearing cheaper because of the additional stop and wait time in the middle. Seems counter-intuitive, right? Well, it is.
It’s a pretty interesting article, especially when read with a retrospective view, because many of the concepts that are mentioned have already been implemented across the industry – displaying just how quickly things can change in this space.
Now that the Shopping Cart has been introduced, an equally interesting piece, written in 2010, proposes a concept that, for all we know, could be the next step in travel and accommodation bookings – a travel shopping cart that lets one add different components from different sites.
On Agoda, the Shopping Cart gives customers the flexibility to compare prices and availability, as well as capitalise on bundle deal savings. During the initial launch stage, the Shopping Cart will only be available for accommodation bookings on web and mobile app. The company says customers will be able to add flights, activities and tours, and attractions soon.
According to Omri Morgenshtern, CEO of Agoda, “This is an important milestone for us in delivering an integrated trip planning experience to our customers. We believe travellers want the ease and convenience of booking full itineraries, rather than individual elements. They want their trip to be cheaper, and they want one trusted source to take responsibility for the entire journey.”
