How do companies such as Skyscanner exist?

Once something becomes well known or the norm its difficult to convince people to use a different site for the same service. I think the exception is when all of a sudden there is a much superior offering, but for something like skyscanner, what more could you ask for?

A bit like google with respect to search engines. Perhaps a bad example though as google's search algorithm is likely second to none.
 
There are heaps of them, Skyscanner have just become the go to as they’ve advertised more than anyone.
Opodo/Momondo are also always worth checking. However, you’re best starting with google flights to find the best deal in terms of dates and then put those dates into skyscanner/opodo etc.
 
Kayak is also decent although I believe it uses Google flights anyway. Like anything- there's nothing stopping you doing it. But can you differentiate yourself and draw users to your site over anywhere else...
 
ubersonic said:
Because they won the war.

It's the same reason over 90% of people use Google as a search engine instead of being split between Lycos, Yahoo, Altavista, Jeeves, Bing, etc.
Click to expand...


Well regarding Google, many people saying the CIA had a large hand in starting it, tech wise and funding wise, I don't think that's a big secret etc. The amount it cost to run Googles hundreds of thousands of servers initially was unreal, many hundreds of millions, they now own large sections of the physical internet so not any more etc.

However Skyscanner nothing like that, probably hosted on AWS these days.

So your saying it's all about marketing...
 
jsmoke said:
Well regarding Google, many people saying the CIA had a large hand in starting it, tech wise and funding wise, I don't think that's a big secret etc. The amount it cost to run Googles hundreds of thousands of servers initially was unreal, many hundreds of millions, they now own large sections of the physical internet so not any more etc.

However Skyscanner nothing like that, probably hosted on AWS these days.

So your saying it's all about marketing...
Click to expand...

And design, if your website is well coded and easy to use, you have a better chance against competitors.
 
It's just a comparison site. Why do any exist? For the money. Sure the likes of Ryanair don't have affiliate programs, but many other airlines/booking agents do.

As for users, it's all just marketing. Highlighting the convenience of quickly being able to check flights across a vast array of airlines, and find the absolute cheapest tickets.
 
SkyScanner also make money on referrals to travel agencies, etc. I suspect probably not if you book direct with an airline though.

It actually started very small, a guy created a tool to monitor EasyJet flight prices as he wanted to go skiing and it went from there!
 
I don't really understand the question. They run a comparison service just like many others do, but probably they are one of a small handful to reach critical mass and thus be widely used, along with Kayak.
You ask why not hundreds of sites but really, can you off the top of your head name hundreds of sites that provide the same service for anything? Basically there isn't enough differentiation feasible in this sector (find the cheapest price for a given set of parameters), so you'll just have a handful of popular sites, even if you had 100 sites all basically the same, some would naturally get more popular for whatever reason, typically due to being one of the first to offer a service of sufficiently good standard, and snowball due to word of mouth / passive advertising etc. Skyscanner was launched in the early noughties so probably had first[early] mover advantage, bearing in mind aggregators / comparison sites were in their infancy back then.

So let's say you have a rival site you are going to launch, basically it is almost impossible to offer a better product in the rawest sense, because the product is information harvested from elsewhere, but from a limited set of providers (it's not like there are a huge range of popular airlines not listed on these sites already). The only way you could catch up with a giant would be to offer a better service.... perhaps better filtering, alerting, etc etc and then invest sufficient in marketing to get people to try your product and determine that it is superior.
 
So you did understand and also answer the question.

But don't you find it strange the way things fall into place, for example it's relatively easy for anyone to setup a similar site and I'm sure a lot of people have tried. It's the same for apps. But yet one or two sites make it to the top. You say it's it's mainly about familiarity.

Maybe if you offered a special deal when launching your site, 100 flights for free or something you might have a chance.

It's really all about creating your brand though.
 
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