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Exactly. People think you get a template and the hard part is over and it is so pretty and so customizable. But even the good paid templates end their tech support after 6 months.
Then when things go wrong or you don't understand a problem, that is when you learn the value of tech support from the web host and from the website. And it ain't cheap.
Ross hit some good points overall. It comes down to how much you want a custom look and feel versus the time spent in wiring up widgets or managing your page content (property photos, description, etc) which has to be duplicated in your template.
When you change the property listing content in OwnerRez (photos, description, amenities, etc) the website end changes instantly because it's built on the same infrastructure. All of our security, routing, load balancing, etc infrastructure handles the website end so you never need to worry about that stuff. And your page are always up to date because it pulls directly your OR account.
With your own third party website (Wix, GoDaddy, Wordpress) you have to manage those content pages on your own. We have widgets for calendars, book-now, inquiries, etc that you can drop in so the dynamic parts of the site will work fine based on your OR settings, but you have to manage what goes around it.
The advantages to using your own third party website is that you can completely customize the look and feel or buy third party templates. Our website engine runs off a central template and you have to work within that template and style what is there. It's a great template with a lot of functionality, but it's not a completely custom green-field experience if that's what you're looking for. Keep in mind that most of the third party templates you're buying (like the one you linked above) is also not completely custom for you either. There are hundreds or thousands of other users who have bought that same template.
NOTE: They had been applied to OR in a prior channel import and now they are not??
Recently I did an Airbnb channel import and for some reason the payments are no longer showing as have been made in OR. I did an overwrite import and a merge import and neither made a difference. Any thoughts.
I bought a Wordpress Vacation rental template that had several thousand sales.Then as I started digging into the various plugins and widgets, I started seeing serious limitations and a lack of knowledge on my part. The template you show has a copyright date of 2023. You think these people are professional?
I certainly wouldn't use a freebie template or one with a few sales. However there are a ton of web issues that a new person may not grasp. SEO, availability, loading time, updates, liability, reviews, professionalism, web presence, host problems....
I figured if there are technical issues, having a website through the people managing some/all of my agreement, paperwork, communications, pricings, calendars, payment methods, credit cards, etc. and handling tens to hundreds of thousands of bookings was better than saving a few bucks on a DIY basis.
They provide a basic template and they host it. There is tech support behind both. It talks to the OwnerRez functionality.
Lost bookings. Bad reviews. Guest confusion. Things I didn't think about. Hacking into my site. What constitutes a huge advantage to you?
I decided to start with their hosted website, instead. There is a saying that the person who serves as his own lawyer has a fool for a client!
Hi Folks,
I'm looking to set up a website for two/three ski condos in Colorado. Would love to hear about anyone who have done this recently and which site you picked, why and your happiness with it.
At the moment I'm considering using Wix and maybe this template: https://www.wix.com/website-template/view/html/1565?siteId=010744df-a688-4c70-88b5-f2b5f1bb0caf&metaSiteId=94ce1a90-35a5-4eb2-a491-2f0208097e2d&originUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wix.com%2Fwebsite%2Ftemplates%2Fhtml%2Ftravel-tourism
I also like the websites from Owner Reservation, however I'd like to use a 3rd party website unless there are huge advantages involved.
I mailed you at the support email - the two images are there now.
Is there a tutorial on "pushing rates". I am able to see the BUTTON for it in channel manager, but want to know about how it effects length of stay, min nights, ect in AirBnb and VRBO. Also jsut to get a good overview of what happens when you push rates and all the ins and outs of it. Thanks Jim
Yep, doing a $1 booking and paying is the best way to do it -- that way you exercise everything. There is also a test button on the payment method itself that makes sure the credentials are right but it doesn't verify that the account is fully ready for processing.
Also heads up if it's a new account you'll have to go to the Stripe settings and grant us permissions to store cards on file: https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/stripe-process-payments-unsafely-setting
Thanks @Ross!
@Stacy...
Right now if you hook up PriceLabs they'll push the spot rates directly into OwnerRez and there's currently no way to override that.
They've got a lot of options on their side though, so you can set min/max prices inside PriceLabs which will control what's pushed to OwnerRez.
This is PriceLabs pointer to OR, FWIW: http://blog.pricelabs.co/ownerrez/
If we use PriceLabs, do we have the option to accept or deny rates they suggest or does it automatically change them?
I setup an account with stripe recently. I would like to test that it is setup properly in ownerrez, ie that the money actually gets into my bank account. Is there a way to do this?
Should I create a $1 booking and pay for it to verify the money gets to my account?
I am sure someone else must have done something like this before.
I just threw that form up there for users that want to start applying early. Soon, we'll have a baked-in application page that you can use to start an application from within OwnerRez.
I saw your post from Feb 2018 which mentioned using Zapier and Twilio. Do you still think that is a viable near term approach?
Which parts are popping out as not wrapping correctly? I scanned through and it looks like it's mostly there with the wrapping. Only things I saw were a couple places where there are multiple spaces that may look weird if they're at the beginning of the line. That you can fix by removing the extra spaces and keeping it to one. The other thing was some long URL's -- you can fix that by editing them using the link/chains button and setting a different "Text to display" so that it's a bit shorter.
Are there other areas where you're seeing a wrapping issue? Maybe send over a screenshot? (we don't do photos on the forums, so go to imgur.com and post it there and then give me a link)
Right now it's all by email. Text messages is in the works but we don't have a firm ETA yet.
On my website, I use the same ID. The reason is I like to be able to follow users across and set up goals etc. to see what the flow is and it's hard if you use different id's.
Under the covers, Google should handle the counting -- you want to look at the unique visitors count where they drop out duplicates, and that way it doesn't matter if they were on both the site and the widget or on multiple pages on both.
We are working on some more detailed housekeeping features like assignment and checklists and reporting.
In the meantime, we're also integrated with ResortCleaning -- they focus entirely on the cleaning side so it's very detailed in terms of the management, cleaners can check in on an app, etc. Check them out over here: https://www.resortcleaning.com/
You can push rates from OwnerRez using channel bridge. To do that, go to Settings > Channel Connections and click on an Airbnb or HomeAway synced channel in the list. If you don't have one yet, add the channel. Then next to each property you'll see the listing number and an actions dropdown including a "push rates" option. Use that and it'll push the rates over. If you don't have a listing number configured yet, first set that in the Change Property Settings button.
There are a couple things you can do to change rates...
#1 - you can do rules based pricing like "for arrivals < 10 days away, add a 20% discount" -- this is done as a criteria in the surcharges & discounts section
#2 - you can use spot rates. These allow you to set specific nightly rates for a date range. It's not a calendar UI yet (we're working on it) but it's the same idea as the OTA nightly rates
#3 - we're integrated with PriceLabs, so you could use them to set rates automatically: https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/pricelabs
Yep, we're working on smoothing out that form with them.
"https://openedgepayments.com/ownerrez/w2l/"
This is a bit of an odd way to set up a payment processor. The form talks about me in the 3rd person, as if you (OR) is supposed to be filling it out for the prospect...
"Sales Representatives – Please use this form to enable OpenEdge to track and report on the status of your merchant lead referral. A representative from OpenEdge will contact your referral shortly."
In OR, are all inquiries coming in through the booking widget handled via email or is there a way to send text messages to a guest's phone?
Hi Lisa,
The demo went well. Resort Cleaning is a little complicated but it also does a lot so I would recommend looking into it if you have time. It integrates not only with OR but also Airbnb ad other calendars. After the free trial, the cost is 99 cents per completed transaction. Jim Duncan is our contact there and he's been very helpful as well as responsive to questions. We are currently testing it out for one of our properties and it is going well so far. Housekeepers use an app to check in and check out and you can also assign and inspector to come in after housecleaning is done. Lots of places for photos and instructions before and after.
Randy
Do you use same tracking ID for your website and for OR widgets?
of different ones?
In 1st case, using different ones example: my overall website GA tracking id is xxxx-1. My OR widgets GA ID is xxxx-2. They are tracked as separate "pages" by google using different user counts etc.
in 2nd case, using same GA ID, If I use xxxx-1 on both OR widgets and on website, I think that overall website traffic will be overstated as some users will be counted twice. Such as it is counted once as person looking at webpage and 2nd time as he/she is looking at embedded calendar (widget) within same page but essentially it is the same user on the same page.
any good practice around this?
Yes I just have a lot of last minute bookings and over 50 cleanings a month- sometimes 25 a week and different cleaners work on different days so I think I need a way to run a report based on which cleaner is working that property on that departure day so then I can specify the report to run for a certain cleaner 2 times a week looking forward maybe 3 weeks at a time..
It would be nice to have it automated to run and send the cleaner the listed report and then notify me the day after each booking if I missed tagging a cleaner to a departure..
I just download a report of bookings between given dates, remove columns that are not relevant to cleaners (such ad phone, name etc), sort by property, and email excel to them every month about the 20th. if there are last minute bookings, I just send them updated excel.
how did it go the cleaning thing is a nightmare for me every week/ day I get a booking on airbnb alone I have over 250 bookings a year let alone the other websites i manage so this would help tremendously
As my list of rentals grow I now deal with quite a few different cleaners.. does anyone use a system to help with this I dont see a place in OwnerREz to say who is cleaning for each of the rentals I have.. any tips would be appreciated
On the release page, if it fails to release, it will show you a Mark As Released button. Click that and it will force-release it in the system. If you can send us a ticket privately, we'll look into this specific instance and why the transaction may not have shown up.
