TRAVEL agents are being offered the chance to sell holidays directly to users of new on-line shopping company Ybag, which launches on March 1.
The company’s Internet site will allow consumers to submit e-mail requests for products including package holidays, books, computers and toys. The messages will be passed on to retailers, who can respond via e-mail if they believe they can achieve a sale.
Ybag chief executive officer Dylan Schlosberg claims more than 110 independent travel agents have already signed up to become suppliers.
He said the service would be free to agents for the first three months. From June, they will still be able to receive and send e-mails to customers free of charge, but they will be charged if the user later contacts them via telephone or their own Web site.
“Our charges are not being disclosed but are not going to be more than £30 a month. For that, retailers will get a lot of calls,” said Schlosberg. “It’s a great sales and marketing tool for agents.”
He said agents would be able to advertise their address, Web site and contact details on every e-mail request they respond to. And he claimed using Ybag was a good way for agents to establish a presence on the Internet without incurring high start-up and maintenance costs.
Among agencies taking part are Africa Travel Centre in London, Pleasure Holidays in Coventry, Traveline in Leicester, and Bonanza Travel in Northampton.
Ybag plans to recruit a single agency to handle a flight-only request service, which it intends to introduce to the site later this year. Schlosberg has a £2m budget to spend on marketing the shopping service to consumers this year, and forecasts it will have 3,000 registered users by October.
n Ybag can be contacted on 0800 731 8971.