I’m starting to suspect there is a sort of
algorithm going on as THS is trying to disperse sits among sitters . They mention
dispersing and distributing of sits as the reason for recent product updates. Ive read it here and in the latest newsletter.
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I’ve also downgraded from premium to Standard Sitter as I think that price point is a better value for me as the membership features have changed.
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We are looking and listening to all of your comments on this subject and will post a response to cover your concerns.
Why do we often leave threads without responding immediately? To allow other members who wish to join the conversation the opportunity to comment.
Thanks everyone.
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Hello everyone,
The Product Team have been monitoring this conversation and have prepared this update to help address any concerns and answer member’s questions.
The new pausing functionality has improved the process for pet parents/owners in popular locations, from listing to confirming their chosen sitter. All of this has become quicker, consequently increasing the turnover of sits. This might mean that prospective members are not given a sense of the sits that get posted in the locations they are interested in.
By showing prospective members the full list of inventory, with paused sits being clearly labelled ‘under review’, we can give them a view of the type of sits that comes onto the platform, as well as a clear indication of what is currently available.
For non-members and to avoid confusion we clearly label those paused sits as being “Under Review” with this description:
“The owner is currently reviewing applications. Don’t miss out on sits - join now to start applying” and changed the button label from “Join Now to Apply” to “Join Now”
We are also planning to make paused sits visible to members to eliminate the discrepancy and to allow members to favourite those sits and be notified if those sits are unpaused. As we have announced earlier, this is being worked on, and will be live soon.
In addition to that, there are currently some differences in the radius of search for non-members and members that might impact the number of results they see.
At the moment, members are presented with a reduced radius of search to make their results more relevant, while non-members see a wider radius of search to give them an indication of what else is available closeby. We will be looking at options of reducing this discrepancy by increasing the radius of search for members as well, with the ability of sorting sits by the proximity to the search location.
Thanks again for your valuable thoughts on this. We will continue monitoring your feedback and will be announcing when those changes are implemented here on the forum
The Product Team
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Popular sits are now a game of chance.
@Ben-ProductManager continues to state that only a small percentage of sits are impacted by the 5 application threshold. I did some quick and dirty calculations in perhaps, key locations. Feel free to call me out if you see errors.
Country non-member/member %paused/unavailable
Australia 651/338 48%
UK 2218/1433 35.4%
USA 2983/2067 30.6%
Drilling down into prime US markets.
California 566/271 52.1%
New York City 114/8 93%
Los Angeles 103/13 87.4%
Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t consider these small percentages at all.
I think this is called smoke and mirrors.
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Why not show prospective sitter members what is truly available for application? Oh wait, I know! Because it would be such a small amount in popular areas that they would be reluctant to join the most expensive house sitting platform in the house sitting community.
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You are not alone. According to the Cambridge dictionary
51% majority
40%-50% large, however, it all depends on what you´re counting as (e.g) 18% is also considered as large in many circumstances
No matter how you count 93% must be a vast majority
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To the THS Product Team—Don’t you think prospective members care about getting a sense of the sit inventory they’ll ACTUALLY see once they pay for a subscription? The paused sits shown to free accounts are in no way clearly marked as unavailable to apply for. THS has carefully crafted a phrase that is true on its surface, yet designed to mislead: "The owner is currently reviewing applications. Don’t miss out on sits - join now to start applying.” If I were unfamiliar with THS, I would 100% interpret that as, “The owner is currently reviewing applications—join now so you can throw your application into the ring, too!” How would a newbie know that “Reviewing applications” = CLOSED AND UNAVAILABLE?
It certainly isn’t clear when a search shows the identical phrase, “There are currently X house sits in New York City, NY, US”, with vastly different numbers shown to the free and paid accounts (114 vs. 8). Which is it?
Free account showing 114 results for New York City:
Paid account showing 8 results for the same search—identical phrasing as the search showing 114 results. Both can’t be true, so THS needs to decide whether “current” house sits include paused applications or not, and update the results to reflect that so there’s consistency across all member types.
Paused listings must be clearly indicated to prospective members that they’re UNAVAILABLE to apply for. If THS is truly concerned about transparency and simply wants to give “a view of the type of sits that comes onto the platform,” that can be done by putting the unavailable sits in a separate section along the bottom, like the “Sits without current dates” section. Otherwise, it’s undoubtedly a bait-and-switch tactic.
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Wow…this is pretty startling. I do wonder if this was intention as it seems to be false advertising/ exaggeration to entice people into subscribing.
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@Ben-ProductManager
I wondered if you have had a chance to investigate my question in post 1 of this thread dated 11 October?
There has been much input since that date but I still don’t understand what the figures mean.
I did the same interrogation of the system today just for England which is a pretty specific geographical area. It states there are 6820 opportunities but when I press to show them it displays 1292.
Am I to understand that 5528 homeowners are reviewing applications?
Apologies again if I am missing something obvious.
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Hi @Twitcher Ben has been offline and will be back in the next few days.
Thank you @Angela_L
and @Ben-ProductManager for clarification, the figures I quoted are what I saw yesterday as a logged in member. Not too sure what a prospective sitter would see for available sits in England.
I’m still not clear what composes the difference in these sit numbers. Of 6820 in England quoted above are all but 1292 currently advertised sits where owners are reviewing applications? Of 114 in New York currently advertising are all but 8 reviewing applications? @Angela_L
Hi @Lauraa, just dipping in here to let you know Angela is offline (on US timeline currently) and this is a question outside the scope of the moderation team that will need to be answered by the product team when they are back online (UK time) Monday. Thanks for yours and everyone else’s continued patience until then.
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Thanks, I’ll tag @Ben-ProductManager then.
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@Ben-ProductManager is tagged in my quick analysis above and it continues to go ignored.
He is back on line on Monday 
Hi @Lauraa @anon1411559 @Twitcher
To clarify I assume you are asking about the footer country, region, counties and city numbers. (see screenshot below)
Its the total number of Sits (listings) in that area, regardless of whether they are live, paused, or have no dates.
Thanks for raising this, will be double-checking the logic and see if it’s been impacted by any recent changes we have made.
Many Thanks,
Ben