Inconvenient "convenience" fees

How much $ do you think they have to spend to have an online site host their registration for them?

When was the last time you tried to buy concert tickets?  In the good old days, you could go to a tTcketmaster stand and buy tickets for some far-away concert.  Then you could buy them over the phone.  I can see paying a fee for Ticketmaster to this service.  Nowdays, even if you go to the venue box office, you still pay a Ticketmaster fee.  

Why in the world would they have to justify passing the cost of on-line registration on to you?  You don't have to do the race.....you are owed nothing.

You mean you don't already know you are going to pay a fee for on-line registration?  I suppose if this is your first race season you may not know....but if you'[ve done a few races then you know it's standard.  Also, I'm REALLY happy to sit down at my computer, pull up every race we are doing in a season, go through and pay the fees and be done with it for the year.  Yeah, I'm happy to pay the fees and use plastic for it to be that convenient.

I guess I just don't get the whole attitude of what someone owes you (me).  You wanna race, you put your money down.  Registration fees are part of the game.

Hmm.  They can DO the extra paper work and charge you more for their time by increasing the race fee $5....   OR, they can add $5 as a convenience charge which goes to the company that does the paperwork for them (and probably more efficiently). 

I don't know.  Seems like the same amount is paid either way to me.

I have an engineering company and we can do surveying as well.  I can give you a proposal to do the engineering for 50k, and the survey for 20k and keep it all in house.  OR, charge 50k to do the engineering and sub out the survey work to someone else for 20k.  No matter what, you are paying 70k.  In case 1, I get all the fee.  In case 2, I only get 50k and have to pay 20k to someone to do the work for me...  So you pay for me to do less work - but pay the surveyor to do THEIR work.

Well, it may come later than you want, but before you hit "pay now" or "submit", you know the final cost  It's not like it comes as a surprise when the CC bill comes.  You can always close the browser window.  I guess before you spend the few minutes putting in all the information, it would be convenient to know what the final price will be.  Seems like a lot of things are like that though.  You put things in your cart and then they calculate the final shipping costs at the very end.  You don't know the ACTAUL out of pocket cost until that's done just before you pay.  I suppose some have the shipping calculator to estimate or if you are getting free shipping.  Always have the chance to back out though.

Here in town we have 2 competing running groups.  They both put on awesome races.  One uses online registration only and the other uses both.  For the first group, they even charge the online fee when you show up to register at the event as they have the computers there and running.  The other group is more of a hometown/grown group.  Unfortunately the first group makes people feel like they have to choose alliances.  Lots of hurt feelings here in our little town.     

I don't do as many of the first group races because I don't want to pay the extra fees but I will  volunteer my time to help with races.  I refuse to choose sides because we all have the goal---be healthy and encouraging.

I bet the club paid a start-up fee and has a low-cost ongoing contract with your web host. 

Race fee = one time management. Might be a lower cost to set up, or completely funded by registration fees.

I have always hated hidden fees and so I agree with the OP on this one.  Tell me at the front end that the price is $X (which includes all processing fees, surcharges, etc).

Now the amount for a race processing fee is usually nominal, so its more of the principle of it but try counting up the hidden fees for a new car. 

The last time I was negotiating the purchase price of a new car, they tacked on a $300 charge for a special registry system that the manufacturer maintained which they claimed would be helpful if the car was stolen (?).  I told them that I wasn't interested in the program as the government already maintains this database and either way I have insurance.  The salesperson told me it was not optional.  I ended up walking away.

I happen to agree with the OP'er that hidden fees are a pain in the neck.  I guess I've done enough tri's to know that registration fees are to be expected and I don't complain about them. it's hard for me to justify being angry about that when I'm content with paying everything else that goes into this not-so-cheap lifestyle.

On a side note, to those out there that organize races, please keep doing them.  I know it's a thankless job and the majority of the triathlons I get to participate in barely break even, but please don't stop putting them together.

It's very simple:  The market will bear it.  There's no need for justification if consumers are willing to pay it.

OK, I have racing and race directing experience. First off, the statement "The market will bear it. There's no need for justification..." it's honestly offensive to me because it's indicating that race directors charge money, because they can.

In general, you would be surprised at how expensive putting on races can be. I organized a cycling event on July 4th and I was required to have 2 policeman on bikes. And I was required to pay them...OT + holiday rate. (This was a race we were putting on for a bike club and it was traditionally on the 4th, even if they tried to move it the cycling calendar is so full they might not be able to put it in the "prime" season.) The 2 policeman were the highest expense of the race. I believe in 2013 it was around $800 EACH for the day. The first year, I had actually asked whether there was any way to reduce this due to the fact that proceeds were being donated to a great charity. (I don't think anyone would argue that the Paralyzed Vets aren't a "great" charity). They actually explained that they were required to charge that amount. Both officers were kind enough to donate a little directly to the charity.

To the OP. I can go over a list of charges for you, but I believe that the event that the 4th of July - which was fairly bare bones - was probably around $6K. This event, in particular was a cycling event. So, charging them $30 each would mean I'd have to have around 200 participants just to break even. Those numbers don't always happen at some of the local cycling events. (And the $30 includes sale tax, that the state of WA is required to pay for participants-9.5% - and the $3 per rider insurance fee - I didn't include these costs in the expense estimate. So it's really 250 riders...)

So...blah, blah...here is what you may want to consider as a hypothetical, maybe you'll get an idea of why race directors don't "eat" the cost themselves.

If I was putting on a local 5K and was trying to figure out what to set registration...how would I go about doing that? You can only get a reasonable estimate of what the expenses are and how many runners you expect. However, what if you get last minute expenses that end up being another $1K or more? What if you expect 200 runners and only 100 register/pay? One small way to cut costs is to pass the online registration fee on to you, a simple way to lower expenses.

Also, a few reasons tp "rationalize" how the online processing fee is worth it for the race director? (1) It encourages pre-registration! Pre-reg numbers may help with food quantity, t-shirt quantity, size of transition area needed...and on and on. (2) As someone else mentioned, I also feel there is a convenience factor for the participant

I personally prefer to let participants know up front that they will be paying the fee. I understand that I will have to pay it, but I'd like to know so it's not a "surprise", but that is me.

As for Ticketmaster, that stumps me and frustrates me. But I'd be more than happy to hear an explanation on that..

I don't know how you pulled that out of TMB's comment.  His comment doesn't say anything about race directors, and I certainly didn't take it that way.  All it said to me was that people pay the fees, so the fees continue. 

As for the cost of a race to participate......remember that there are some companies in it PURELY for profit.  They will most certainly charge whatever they can.

Wow!  You read an awful lot into my statement!

I've worked as either a business owner or various levels of management for 25 years, and I can tell you with certainty that from a consumer's perspective the costs to produce a product or provide a service are completely irrelevant.  All that matters is what is it worth to the consumer.  In other words, what will the market bear?  At the end of the day, for a business model to be sustainable long term, pricing must be market driven, not cost driven.

This cuts both directions.  If a business owner (or race director) cannot figure out how to reduce their costs enough to result in some profit left over after selling their product at the price their customers are willing to pay, they won't be in business for long.  If consumers are willing to pay more than the business thinks they need to charge based on their costs, and the business doesn't charge it, then the business is foolish, because they're leaving money on the table (and IME in most cases in recent years, actually doesn't know their costs, and is actually losing money on every sale, but doesn't know it yet.)

ETA:  Another example of market driven pricing in this sport is monthly coaching fees.  It doesn't take much reading in these forums to see a lot of posts that people think coaching fees are too high.  It also doesn't take much math to estimate how much a coach can get paid for "billable hours" coaching and see that factoring in the costs of insurance, certifications, continuing education, mileage, software fees, etc plus the years of experience it takes to become good at it, that from the coach's perspective, $200+ per month is far from price gouging.  BUT, none of this matters, because the market won't bear it, so coaches need to figure out how to deliver value at the market price.

Another first-world problems thread. Although I was also annoyed when I signed up for Philly Tri and there were $19 in fees tacked on by Competitor.com. However, as pointed out, it didn't stop me or anyone else from signing up.

Yes... but that website registration/hosting does cost $$$. And they pass that cost on to you.