Blog
Jan 22, 2023
When looking for a ticketing platform, you may stumble upon Fareharbor. This rather new booking solution has seen a growth in clientele thanks to their ambitious marketing. Before deciding to choose them as your primary booking platform, you should first learn about the process of selling tickets and/or reservations through them.
From account creation to making ticket sales, the process of selling tickets on Fareharbor can be difficult if you are new to the platform. Read on to learn about what Fareharbor is and how its platform works.
What Is Fareharbor?
Fareharbor is a ticketing platform for tour and activity businesses that helps them run their business with an array of tools. It was founded in Hawaii in 2013 and has grown to include 7 offices around the globe. With over 15,000 clients worldwide, they are aiming to shape the future of travel altogether.
To do this, they need people like you to use the Fareharbor platform and enjoy it. We have laid out how to create bookings for your event through Fareharbor in 5 main steps.
I. Schedule A Demo
With Fareharbor, you cannot instantly create an account as many big-name brand ticketing providers allow. Instead, you need to schedule a demo with their support team to get a better understanding of how they can tailor their services to your needs. During the demo, you will receive a sales pitch about their platform and are allowed to ask as many questions as you need to clear up any confusion.
You will also need to provide them with information about your event. They will need to know things like how many tickets you plan on selling, the prices of each ticket, and when your event or reservations are for. This way they can accurately set up a calendar for your business with the right time slots and price points.
There is no way to create an account with Fareharbor without first going through the demo, however, as an alternative, you can create your account instantly here.
II. Have Your Fareharbor Account Created
Once you have completed your demo and decide to work with them, they will create the event for you and send you login information to your account. Every account has its own login page and you will need the URL given to you for you to gain access to your dashboard.
The dashboard will be for a single event that you discussed during your demo. If you need multiple events, you will need to keep contacting support to create the events for you.
The dashboard is complex and filled with various tools. It is primarily designed to have you learn about the tool but then contact support so that they can implement them for you.
Across the top of your dashboard, you will see 6 primary tabs.
- Bookings
- Manifest
- Reports
- Items
- Settings
- Help
Within these tabs, you can see how many tickets you have sold, metrics, data points, and manage aspects of your account such as coupons, liability waivers, and user management settings. If you are struggling to navigate your dashboard, you can contact support to have them walk you through it. There are also a few articles on their website to help you navigate through their system as well.
Your tickets and time slots should already be set up to your liking. If they are not, you may need to re-contact support to get that fixed or attempt to do it yourself. Oftentimes, it is best to just contact someone from their support team to do it for you though.
IV. Install Your Fareharbor Widget
Once your dashboard is set to your liking, you will need to add the Fareharbor Lightframe™ overlay to a page on your existing website through the use of tools and plugins. This process can be complex for some, so they offer to do it for you if you are willing to share your website information with them. Otherwise, they can work with your existing website developer to integrate the Fareharbor widget.
If you don’t have a website, they recently launched FareHarbor Sites which offers templates for you to build your own website with help from them. It is essentially a WordPress website designed to integrate their ticketing widget more smoothly.
When it comes to website development for your business, you may want to pay to have a professional design your website to maximize your ticket sales online. Often, templates result in low SEO which in turn leads to fewer people seeing your tickets for sale. So, you may want to consider other options before using Fareharbor Sites.
Widget Usability
The Fareharbor widget can be hard to adjust to for some customers. The company offers you the ability to add pictures and descriptions to your widget, but it makes the checkout process take much longer because there are a lot more steps.
Before customers can make a reservation, they need to select a ticket category, then a ticket, then a day, then a time slot, then the number of tickets, answer questions, and then finally enter their card information. Each of these steps is on its own page, making the checkout process lengthy and more complicated than it needs to be. This can lead to loosing some potential sales in comparison with a more user-friendly two-step checkout process.
Plus, the bulky widget can be slow to load sometimes, increasing the chances customers abandon their carts. To prevent this, we recommend adding pictures of a lower resolution so that they load faster, or no pictures at all.
V. Start Selling Tickets
With your Fareharbor widget set up on your website, you can begin selling tickets. For every ticket sale, there will be a merchant service fee of 1.9% plus 30¢. Plus, Fareharbor has a fee of around 6% that is passed to your customers at checkout. So, Fareharbor’s fees are around 9% in total.
Customers can pay online through the Fareharbor’s merchant service provider Stripe. All payments are secure so your customers don’t have to worry about their information being stolen.
Your customers can pay in person as well through:
- Bluetooth and Wi-Fi-connected card readers
- Tap to Pay on iPhone
- Tap on Mobile on Android
Fareharbor Compass
Fareharbor’s Compass feature, is essentially a hub filled with content that can help you better your business. It features growth-focused topics such as:
- Search engine optimization
- Industry insights and trends
- Social media marketing
- Pay-per-click advertising
Compass also recommends content specifically to you based on your skill level and interests. Essentially, the professionals at Fareharbor have put together a guide on how to market your business.
What Are Fareharbor Fees?
As we mentioned previously, Fareharbor does have fees that are not mentioned on their website. They don’t mention them because you, their customer, do not have to pay them. However, your customers do at checkout.
On average, Fareharbor charges a fee of around 9% to the person purchasing tickets. The account holder is not charged this fee but should be cautious about the fee amount associated with their tickets.
All ticketing platforms have fees. That is how they make money and can continue to grow. Whenever someone makes reservations through a platform, a fee is charged. However, if the customer has to pay the fee and that fee is higher than expected, they may decide to abandon their cart. The higher the total is from the original ticket price, the more likely customers are to change their minds about buying tickets from your business.
Should You Use FareHarbor?
Determining whether or not to use Fareharbor for bookings and reservations comes down to what you expect out of a ticketing platform. Usually, a good ticketing platform has fair fees, good support, and a variety of tools to help you sell more tickets.
Advantages of using Fareharbor to sell tickets include:
- Informational hub
- Support team
- Everything is done for you
- Lots of features
Disadvantages of using Fareharbor as your primary ticketing solution include:
- High fees that can dissuade customers from purchasing from you
- You have to go through support to create anything
- The dashboard is pretty complicated
- Widget is bulky and has too many steps to complete a purchase
At the end of the day, if you are willing to gamble with the high fees and don’t mind calling support for everything, Fareharbor is a good option. However, we would recommend looking into other alternatives as well for selling tickets.
Fareharbor Alternatives
Although Fareharbor has some great advantages to using its platform, you may still want to consider some alternatives. A few popular Fareharbor alternatives are:
All of these alternatives have their own advantages and disadvantages to using them as your primary ticketing solution. You can always decide to use multiple alternatives to sell tickets through various platforms but should be careful about which platforms you choose. Not all platforms are created equal, and you might be losing out on profits by working with the wrong ones.
Let’s take a deeper dive into the primary alternative to Fareharbor, TicketsCandy, to see what it has to offer.
What Is TicketsCandy?
TicketsCandy is a strong alternative to Fareharbor that offers a vast array of tools for your business to sell tickets with. The comprehensive and flexible platform has almost no limitations to how it can be tailored to meet your business’s needs.
Start by signing up for a free account and have your dashboard created instantly. With no wait time, you can get to selling tickets right away. When you want to add another event, you can do so immediately from your own dashboard without having to go through support.
Utilize marketing tools from Google, Facebook, TikTok, and other platforms to track your marketing efforts and opt into their social sharing option to gain more attention for your event through their media accounts.
Once you start selling tickets, TicketsCandy passes an incredibly small fee of 0.9% to your customers, or you can choose to absorb it for yourself. Such a tiny fee guarantees up to 30% more sales in comparison with competitors. Overall, the platform is easy to use with an incredible support page filled with videos and articles so that you don’t have to directly contact support if you don’t want to.
Should You Use TicketsCandy?
We talked about the advantages and disadvantages of using Fareharbor as your primary ticketing provider. However, should you be using their main alternative instead?
Here are the advantages of using TicketsCandy to make ticket sales.
- Industry low fees you can absorb or pass to your customers without loosing revenue and sales
- Instant account creation allows you complete control over your dashboard at all times
- Numerous features designed to help you make more sales
- 25% off a custom premium website from Atavion
Disadvantages of using TickestCandy include:
- No reserved seating options
If your event or business requires reserved seating, you may need to choose a different Fareharbor alternative. However, when it comes to prices, usability, and features, TicketsCandy is your go-to ticketing platform. Their comprehensive list of tools and incredible support team make them a key player in the ticketing industry. With no contracts or hidden fees to worry about, it just makes sense to give them a try.
Selling Tickets Through Fareharbor
The process of starting to sell tickets on Fareharbor can be daunting at first but with patience, you will get the hang of it. Their support team is there to help with every aspect of selling tickets. Although the Fareharbor fee is rather high and the widget where you make sales can be complicated, overall the platform does allow you to sell tickets online.
If you are looking for a Fareharbor alternative with smaller fees, a user-friendly dashboard, a sales-oriented simple widget, and an incredible support team, you should consider TicketsCandy. Check out their website today to learn more about how their platform works.
No matter who you choose, remember that finding a ticketing platform is just the first step to making ticket sales. You need a strong marketing plan and a good website to maximize your ticket sales. Without key tools and marketing features, you will not be reaching your ticket sale goals.
