Building LuxeBook: The Two Decisions Which Set Us Apart.
So, for the sake of a few minutes of your time, and for the sake of some transparency, something which matters a lot, I wanted to spend some time talking about the principles, and decisions that I made when I initially developed the foundations of what has turned into the LuxeBook that is beginning its final stages of being made available for download.
From the big decisions, to the smaller ones, I feel as if every little thing has contributed into making LuxeBook one of the most exciting product releases ever targeted for the Beauty/Wedding/Self-Employed spaces, and today, I want to talk about some of the biggest decisions I took when developing the app.
Payments - Why Not Integrate?
So, let's begin with the biggest point first, and the single biggest headache I had when developing LuxeBook. Payments.
I'm all for integrated payment solutions - having a background in banking myself, I completely understand the need for payment solutions that work, and function for everyone. A few years ago, the relative cost of a service such as Stripe would have been a complete must for a platform of this kind - however, this comes with some quite significant drawbacks.
The cost to business is almost completely irrelevant, as my concern really isn't about the cost that LuxeBook would incur for using such a platform. For the client, they also, would not incur any cost, bar the cost of their booking with the Professional they've chosen. The cost, is effectively fully leveraged on the pro themselves.
For example, one of our competitors (who uses Stripe's API for payment processing), charges a flat rate of anywhere from 1.4%, to 2.2%, PLUS a flat fee on top (20-25p), depending on whether its an up-front payment (via Apple Pay/card), or whether you enter the details yourself into their system (known as Manual Key Entry). Now... this doesn't seem like a lot of money in isolation, however, those costs add up.
Let's take a scenario: You're a self-employed pro - who's paying the entry level £14.95 a month for Fresha, and you take 100 bookings in a year, at an average value of £50, and pay a 2.2% charge on those payments, with a 20p flat charge on top. Here's how the cost plays out:
> £179.40 per year is the cost of the subscription to Competitor A
> The Payment Processing Costs would work out as
> A £20 flat charge total over the course of the year
> £110 in payment processing fees.
£130 Per Year, just in payment fees.
Once you factor in the subscription charge too, you'll pay a total of £309.40 on those 100 bookings (a per booking cost of £3.09). If you find some of those bookings through one of our competitors marketplace, that also costs 20% of the total price of the booking too (or £4, whichever is higher). In some cases, you could lose somewhere between £7, and £15 PER BOOKING, all fee's deducted.
How is that supporting self-employed pro's to grow their business?
What's The Alternative?
The beauty of Financial Tech in today's world, is the amount of options that are available to receive payments, not only just for business use, but for personal use too.
In the UK, Monzo, Starling Bank, and many others offer Payment Links - single use, generative links that can be sent to people, so they can make a card payment - you receive 100% of the payment you ask for, and can be integrated into an invoice, text message, or into whichever way you receive your bookings. They're seamless, they're free, and they do everything that Stripe does, but better, with more control, and portability - perfect for self-employed pro's who want to keep more of their money. And don't forget - old fashioned bank transfers are just as good in today's world - with systems being quicker than ever, why pay for convenience, when that convenience does sometimes end up being slower than the old-school methods.
And, this is ringing true everywhere you look - the US has CashApp and Venmo, and many traditional banks are now finally embracing modern tech to provide seamless transfer services to their customers, so there's simply very little reason to accept paying payment fees, when you actually don't need to.
LuxeBook's single reason for not integrating payments into the service, is because our service should help you grow, without stripping you of money at every opportunity, and it was something I was very keen to avoid when I began developing LuxeBook.
LuxeBook is there to support, not extort.
Marketing - It's a similar story.
This, is much easier to explain.
Adding the functionality into the app was a no-brainer for me. It's an important toolkit in anybody's arsenal, especially to those who are in repeat-service spaces, such as barbers, nail/lash techs, amongst others.
Competitors charge you per message (with some thrown in free), and deals with it in a way, which for a web-first platform, makes sense in some cases. In LuxeBook's case, it's been designed to be LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE to ever charge you for sending a marketing message.
Why?
Because LuxeBook is phone-first.
LuxeBook is designed to integrate into your phone, and what you use. So, as a design choice, I decided to ensure that, not only would marketing messages pre-populate into a message (with smart tools to ensure the name of your client was also populated etc), but because it's in a message, on your own device, you're using your pre-existing mobile plan, which you already pay for.
99% of mobile plans include unlimited SMS/Data allowances. LuxeBook allows you to leverage this into something useful, and productive, whilst reducing your overhead costs, so you can grow your business with confidence, and whilst saving yourself money compared to using our competitors.
It was the easiest decision that I made when developing LuxeBook. It means that, you'll never pay LuxeBook, to send a marketing message to a client, aside from the £9.99 per-month fee for LuxeBook PRO - however this also unlocks a wealth of powerful tools, that cost upwards of £25 a month with our competition.
Value is important - LuxeBook provides it.
Why £9.99 a month for LuxeBook PRO?
I can answer this question in one line - LuxeBook is about empowering, and supporting businesses to grow, become successful, and reach their goals, in a way which is more sustainable, cheaper, and more in-line with the way which modern pro's work, and what they need.
You can't do that by treating your subscriber base as an endless money-pit.
When I laid the groundwork for LuxeBook PRO, I thought about two key things - value for money, and functionality value. How can I add value for your money, whilst also making the functions available valuable to you in return.
The functions within LuxeBook PRO's subscription price, are gated behind paid tiers with competitors which cost 2.5x as much as 1 month of LuxeBook PRO. Online Booking, with the portability of a shareable link/app clip, beats the likes of Fresha, who push you towards downloading their own client-side application - why should your clients be sucked into an ecosystem when they don't need to be? App Clips on iOS require no install, are entirely cloud/web hosted, and require no sign up. Plus, you can display this on your socials too - put it in your Instagram bio, your Facebook bio, wherever you operate. Make a QR code for it! The link is unique to you!
If I charge £15 a month, how can I say this is value for money? I CAN'T.
£9.99 is cheaper than the entry level of anyone else, guaranteeing you a saving, of £60, just on subscription fee's alone, when compared to our competition. But, the best bit is this - LuxeBook is phone-first. You can do EVERYTHING, on your phone. Nobody else can offer this level of power, natively on-device.
Value is not just about what it does - but where it does it. LuxeBook PRO does it where modern pro's tend to work - on their phone.