Wendy's Is Introducing Uber-Style 'Surge Pricing'
Wendy's Is Introducing Uber-Style 'Surge Pricing'
Kirk Tanner, the new CEO and president of Wendy’s, shared with analysts his various plans to increase company profits, including investing in digital menu boards that will have the capacity to display dynamic pricing that fluctuates throughout the day by 2025. Here's what customers need to know.
i literally cannot think of a pricing model i want less for a restaurant i might conceivably patronize than this
57I don't know. I can see it.
The Subway near me is often very quiet, but at particular times, predictably every week, they're absolutely slammed. If they jacked all their prices by $1, then offered "off-hours discounts" of even $2, they'd probably see the same average price per sandwich, but shift customer demand to keep the restaurant more steady. They might even attract new customers who don't come during rush times because they're time sensitive, not price sensitive.
In other words, this could be a win-win-win for everybody:
Subway sees higher total revenue
Price-sensitive customers can shift their orders to lull hours and save a bit of money
Time-sensitive customers have lower wait times during lunch/dinner rush.Subway (and Wendy's, for that matter) already do this a bit with their coupons; I rarely go to Subway without coupons since I'm price sensitive. Switching from coupons to scheduled price fluctuations isn't really a big change, and keeps people paying less with coupons from gumming up the dinner rush.
I think this could be good.
12I think this could be good.
on principle i will never trust any corporation to do good things unless compelled to by a higher power such as the state, and i certainly do not trust them to do good things when the corporate-speak being used to describe those things is "enhanced features like dynamic pricing and daypart offerings along with AI-enabled menu changes and suggestive selling." reeks of grift
41You have to look at why are they busy at particular times though. Is it first thing? That'll be breakfast on the way to work. Lunchtime? Speaks for itself. Early evening, that'll be after work.
People can't just randomly change their work hours to suit Subway/Wendy etc prices.
And, not everyone wants breakfast at 11 am and lunch at 3pm.
Any company upping their prices because it's busy are just gouging customers.
How about they reduce prices when less customers are about?
24Price-sensitive customers can shift their orders to lull hours and save a bit of money
No, that's not part of this. They never said they're dropping prices during off hours, just increasing them during busy ones. Price conscious people will be getting the same cost they are now or a price increase, not a discount.
12How about the customers that are both time- and price sensitive?
2
Then I’m gonna implement Uber-style driving my ass away
35Lmao, it's ridiculous how much this made me laugh! Thank you for that. :)
6
It could be my favorite restaurant and I would stop going and start advocating against them to friends and family if they did this.
21I guess that’s one way to cut down on business during the rush hour
21It's a way to maximize profits from a shifting demand curve:
7
If I ever see, 'prices are higher at the moment due to increased demand' on my Wendy's app, I'll be walking my happy ass to McDonald's.
21As if they'd write something like that? I think it's more likely they'll just show a higher price as if it's the normal base price and hope people don't notice or care.
12If they were smart, they'd raise the prices to whatever their maximum surge pricing is and then show discounts on slower times. Then when they roll back the policy, they get a sneaky price increase because the higher prices were the "non-discoumted" prices
6I stg I will whip out the baconator spreadsheet
1
Well that sounds like price gouging with extra steps
17Surge pricing to level demand is a potentially valid strategy when you're trying to even optimize your off-peak manpower or have limited production capacity. Surge pricing to increase profits is going to be detrimental to their business.
13People have options, and it’s very easy to go somewhere else. If the food isn’t better the price and demand are going to be perfectly related. Every price hike matched by a corresponding drop in sales. Zero sum game.
10Reading this comment made me realize that the competition will just copy the system because customers having options is not good for business.
5
Time to start haggling at the drive thru window. Let's see if they'll give me a discount to "surge" out of the way at noon.
7I hope they lose a lot of money doing this, so that they dissuade other companies from doing the same.
4Well its great that I prefer popeyes lmao
2