Priceline.com (NASDAQ: PCLN) is a
commercial website which helps users obtain discount rates for
travel-related items such as airline tickets and
hotel stays. The company is not a direct supplier of these services; it is similar to a
web portal, providing comparative pricing from an assortment of service companies. It is
headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut,
United States. Priceline is the brainchild of venture
capitalist Jesse Fink and of digital entrepreneur
Jay Walker; the company's origins were closely tied with Walker's company Walker Digital. Hong Kong company Cheung Kong Holdings
later purchased a significant portion of Priceline's stock.[1]
It first gained prominence for its Name Your Own Price system, where
travelers would name their price for airline tickets, hotel rooms, and car rentals. The price would be compared to undisclosed
prices in the Priceline database, with the purchaser knowing the location and name of the rental car company, airline, or hotel
only after the purchase had gone through, with no rights to cancel. (According to the web site, the no-cancellation no-refund
policy is because Priceline offers the price to the hotel, airline, or car rental agency with the promise that the service would
be sold and the seat or hotel will be filled, or the car will be rented.) Priceline's cut of the proceeds was the difference
between the price an individual named and the price charged by the service establishment. More recently, it has moved to a more
traditional model where travelers are presented prices and are also told the name of the establishment. Travelers can still
choose to name their price but the number of participants in that program has significantly diminished.
Priceline.com also experimented with selling gasoline and groceries under the Name Your Own Price model in
2000, at the height of the dot-com bubble, through a
partially owned affiliate, WebHouse Club. Priceline also got into the online
auction business with Priceline Yard Sales, where individuals would use the Priceline system to haggle for various
second hand items and trade them in person. Priceline also sold long distance telephone
service and automobiles under the Name Your Own Price model. All of these experiments
were terminated in 2002. Another experiment, the Name Your Own Rate system for home loans,
continues under a license with EverBank.
For years, Priceline's official spokesperson was William Shatner, who agreed to do
the spots for free in exchange for stock in the company. The arrangement turned out to be quite
profitable for Shatner, who sold much of the stock shortly before its value plummeted in the dot-com bust. An early ad campaign featuring Shatner had him belt out popular songs in spoken word, in the style of his album, The Transformed
Man. He was "replaced" in 2004 by his Star
Trek co-star, Leonard Nimoy. Shatner still appeared in spots for Priceline,
running into Nimoy as his replacement. When that campaign ended, Shatner again became Priceline's sole spokesperson.
Footnotes
References
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