Nick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> what happens when I've bought >> my mooring for 20p and settled down at 2pm, and Adrian turns up at 6PM >> ready to pay a tenner? Am I cast adrift?
>How is this administered? A mooring operator with a cap and a ticket >machine, or an on-line system? Or what? A ticket-spitting machine might be an answer. Inexpensive and effective. >>> [2] - and that in turn is mad: filling 5 moorings at a tenner each may >>> get more revenue than 10 at 1 quid each, but it leaves 5 people unable >>> to moor and 5 spaces empty - that cannot be right. >> There is no need to operate the thing rigidly. > >I presume by "rigidly" you mean "on a simple set of rules". No. I meant "using the same price all the time". >> If moorings were more profitable, riparian owners might >> well find it worth their while to create more of them. > >Not for the sort of honey-pot moorings we are talking about. Why not? There are almost always riparian owners there. > After all, you could argue that this entire system is already in operation > but BW >are undercutting by selling their moorings for nothing (which, in a >market, they are perfectly entitled to do The only time that boaters would pay to moor is where they want to moor but all moorings woul be full if they were free of charge. For most of the system, that isn't the case. Moorings are a local market. What BW does with "the entire system" (i.e. all the bits where short-term mooring supply exceeds demand) is irrelevant to the bits where that isn't the case. >- we've established that >running existing moorings has almost no cost - and I'm sure it's less >cost than running a mooring management system). That, too is irrelevant. The market price is not "cost plus". >If there was the demand, and the return, then the riperian owner could do this >right now >and reap the benefit. That's what I said further above. > It makes no difference at all to him what price >BW are selling their small supply of moorings for if there really is a >demand and people willing to pay. Yes. >> Maximising the use is easy. > >Will you explain how? Simple. Underprice the moorings. >Tom, Dick and Harry come past a between 2pm and >3pm and aren't prepared to pay your current price. At 5PM you have >three empty moorings and lower the price. No-one now comes along. They >have missed out on mooring where they want to, and you have not taken >any money from the moorings. This is a loss all round. So that's obviously not the right pricing regime. Again, see above. >> But that isn't the only criterion for a >> successful pricing/allocation regime. Maximising convenience and >> availability are just as, if not more, important. If I need >> something, it isn't much solace to me that it is priced very cheap but >> none is available. > >No, but apart from the fact you clearly can, and are willing, to pay - >is it any better than you want some but aren't prepared to pay the >asking price for it. Yes. You, and the boater who was willing to pay for the space you turned your nose up at, had a choice. If all the moorings are full, you don't have a choice, even if you need very badly to moor there that day. Also, BW has obtained some revenue. Adrian Adrian Stott 07956-299966
