The first thing to focus on is locations that Illini Bucks would use and potential opportunities and issues that can result from each of those.
- Stores: this can be the Illini Union Book Store, County Market, or Urban Outfitters. These can be leveraged in very busy times, however the majority of the time there aren't long lines at these locations. The bookstore during the first few and last weeks of the semesters is a good time or County Market on Sundays, but otherwise there is very little demand for them during the year.
- Resturants: this is probably the most useful market that I think people would use Illini Bucks for. There are always days where the Chipotle or Maize line can be 25-30 minutes long and on an empty stomach that could really lighten your "h-anger". However, this introduces the problem of what if everyone has access to Illini Bucks? The value is diminished if everyone has them and there is no pay off in line reduction.
- Bars: this would be a huge demographic for Illini Bucks but probably the most difficult to control. Individuals who had Illini Bucks may use them to cut the line, but so would everyone. So in order to keep the advantage a level of inethical behavior may be introduced in people selling tickets (similiar to scalpers at a baseball game) outside of the bars for marked up prices to intoxicated individuals who are willing to pay the premium. This creates a black market in essence where things are not being sold by the vendor or at the price.
The Illini Bucks is an interesting concept of creating value that is not there. Illini Bucks is not a product, but a service that allows you to cut lines. However, how can you back the value of Illini Bucks? For example. How can you ensure that Destihl honors Illini Bucks and allows you to skip an hour and a half table wait? They can't. There purely is not the bandwith to support enforcement and Illini Bucks is not a requirement. No one has to provide this services because the Illini Bucks provider would need to voluntarily get the stores, resturants, and bars they use them at to buy in to the program and that would require some sort of incentive that they may or may not be able to cover at a price of Illini Bucks that would make it worth it for people to invest.
Illini Bucks is a great idea, but the logistics are not there. Pricing would have to be low cost to appeal to the student demographic but high enough so a share could go to all the businesses to use it. To have use at every type of area that has a line would be infeasible in terms of cost. Illini Bucks does not have the logistical capabilities to have a successful launch into the U of I market.
I think you over interpreted the prompt. There is really no way for the university regulated access to commercial entities in town - the stores, restaurants, and bars that in your example. If those entities accepted the Illinibucks for said purpose, they would do so expecting to redeem them, meaning the university would have to hand over money to these commercial entities which would entail a real cost. What revenue source would the university tap to pay for that?
ReplyDeleteThe exercise was meant to consider only activities allocated on campus where students pay a time price to get access. The thought is that managing that time price better might promote efficiency, at least in some cases. Students could then prioritize those lines that the don't want to wait in and that particular resource would be allocated to such students.
Understandable.
ReplyDeleteSome of the interesting points brought up in class were the idea of using it to early register for class. The cost of missing out on this class can lead to potential graduation delays. I found it incredibly interesting that you touched upon the subject of time & priorities as a source of value.
In my example, I focused on commercial as a misunderstanding of campus resources as opposed to university sponsored ones.