Obviously you were not alone. Heck I knew about resale, even made the call in myself, when I bought direct 14 years ago. I bought direct for two reasons - longer contract and the other person buying with me was not onboard with resale (Insert annoyed face here -
).
Still I am sure the sales force would agree that it was definitely a hard sale, in general terms, when the buyer knew about resale during those times where there was no difference between them (well besides saving thousands and thousands of dollars.
) and when there was some just miniscule differences. Just because you and I and others bought knowing does not mean it wasn't very difficult with many prospective buyers who knew about resale.
I have always been very perplexed that they didn't do something more extreme years earlier, for their own sales.
They didn’t do anything more extreme before because they didn’t have to do so. Just like they don’t now.
DVC worried about resales affecting direct sales is them worried about ghosts behind their backs.
DVC has a model staged to perform fantastically whether resale is high or not. Allowing resales to remain high makes them special, different than “just another timeshare”.
It doesn’t hurt their sales.
Or.
To the extent that it does, there are other fish in the sea. Plenty of them.
One of the main arguments that DVC doesn’t really care what we think is that there are plenty of other people lining up to take our place. That’s true enough. But that works both ways.
The parks are jammed full...... of potential DVC customers.
DVC ignores more potential foot traffic than most timeshares ever hope to see. THIS is why I think the excuse that this is just a business decision or maximizing shareholder value is just that, an excuse.
If DVC spent half the time it’s currently spending devaluing it’s product on expanding its outreach to the market at its fingertips, they could sell more points at $200/point than they could manufacture.
A few very low cost examples:
1. There’s a check box when reservations are made to identify who’s not a member. These are people who’ve done enough preliminary research about DVC to rent points. They’ve already educated themselves about the product, talk about a prime potential customer! At check in, offer them dinner at a nice Disney location and make a mild pitch but more importantly, a direct ask.
2. Just put a huge banner up at the entrance to Epcot saying, “Welcome home DVC members, your private lounge is in the Imagination Pavilion! (Ask how you can become a member at any DVC station)”
3. Two extra FPs per day for members and their guests staying in rooms on their points. Must be their points and a member must be on the reservation and present at check in. That one right there would spike the value of DVC through the roof. Cost? Maybe the opportunity cost of what they could be sold for elsewhere but selling them this way makes them worth tens of thousands of dollars, so there’s that.
4. Add an extra Moonlight Magic event at each park and spread out a third of the space at each event for non-DVC members considering a purchase. That doesn’t take anything away from current members but how powerful would the following offer in the hands of a guide be? “You said you’re coming down in February, let me invite you and your family to a special DVC event to show you what makes DVC so special.” —— If a guide couldn’t close that sale afterwards, they weren’t trying hard enough.
No. Until DVC makes a much better effort capturing its current foot traffic, I’m unconvinced that trying to kill resale is the best business model they could adopt.
They need to stop looking over their shoulders and actually reach out to the audience of the most crowded parks in their history. There are dozens of ways to do that without being aggressive.
