Wendy’s is looking to test having the prices of its menu items fluctuate throughout the day based on demand, implementing a strategy that has already taken hold with ride-sharing companies and ticket sellers.
During a conference call earlier this month, Wendy’s CEO Kirk Tanner said that the Dublin, Ohio-based burger chain will start testing dynamic pricing, also known as surge pricing, as early as next year.
May Kirk Tanner (now there's a waste of a good name for a porn star) contract a series of inexplicable and painful loathesome diseases. Afterwards, may he then die soon, in great agony, and often. May his stock holdings tank and may he live his final days in a refrigerator carton under an overpass of I-70. May his establishments sit idle and be closed for flagrant violations of the health codes.
(Greedy fucker can go get a job more suited to him, such as assistant stunner at a meatpacking plant.)
(Ask me how I really feel about this horrible and greedy concept.)
You can't surge price a fungible item without collusion.
ReplyDeletePeople eat that sh ... stuff ... ?
ReplyDeleteWendy's has shifted from 'Where's the Beef' AKA honesty in fast food to the sort of tricky practices and dealing you'd expect at a bottom-feeding used car dealer. It's had something of a faithful clientele that paid more for a better, less gimmicked food; now it's ditched them and the whole shtick of the brand. Instant trashing of everything Dave built. Own goal at the Superbowl.
ReplyDeleteMaybe car dealers can do that too. not in the long run fluctuations due to supply and demand but on an individual basis.
ReplyDeleteDealer: Okay Mister Jones, the new car that you ordered has come in.
Mr.Jones: The price is $4,500 more than I was told when ordering it.
Dealer: Well, since we have been selling more cars and there is more demand now than a month ago we had to raise the price.
Mr.Jones: But I already sold my old car and I need something to drive to work tomorrow.
Dealer: Sorry, and by the way the deposit is non-refundable on a special order. It sucks to be you.
You nailed the car dealer model. Pop was in the car business for 56 years. Finally gave up running new car dealerships and went into wholesaling and that was back in the 90's. This is going to blow up in Wendy's faces. I don't eat there so no real loss to me. Funny how their board must have laughed their ass's off at how stupid that Dave guy was. He didn't know anything about shareholder value.
ReplyDeleteMy penny is...
ReplyDeletePeople will vote with their feet. I'm not saying boycott,
I'm saying people going in the door to pay what they did
a few days before and get dinged for more will remember
that and find another business that doesn't screw them.
I predict the policy will be short lived, or wendy's will
be. Fast food is ubiquitous.
Eck!
Wendy's, burned by CEO comment, vows no price surges for burgers
ReplyDeletehttps://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/wendys-will-not-implement-surge-pricing-ceo-comment-causes-online-stir-2024-02-28/
Seems like they were testing the waters, as they are now saying that they would never actually DO that. However, it does indicate that the old model of selling a thing for a profit is no longer doing it for the shareholder crowd. It's also manifesting as car manufacturers trying to make things like heated seats into a subscription service, and motorcycle manufacturers (lookin' at you, KTM, and not liking what I see), turning off things like quickshift or cruise control after a 60 day free trial and sell them to you as options.I didn't expect late-stage capitalism to be pretty.
ReplyDeleteSo they inch up their prices, then offer discounts off-peak.
ReplyDeleteSame shit, different terminology. Still evil.
Back in the late '80s they were the only place in the East Bay you could get an edible burger for a dollar. They seem like they have been on a downhill slide ever since they found the finger in the chili...
ReplyDelete-Doug in Sugar Pine
assistant stunner at a meatpacking plant. . . with aluminum foil lined coveralls. . .
ReplyDeleteSurge / demand pricing: You're the 6th guy in line and your Frosty is 27 cents more that the guy who is at the register. . . and he gloats about it. . . Should be fun.
It's also manifesting as car manufacturers trying to make things like heated seats into a subscription service, and motorcycle manufacturers (lookin' at you, KTM, and not liking what I see), turning off things like quickshift or cruise control after a 60 day free trial and sell them to you as options.
ReplyDeleteThese are not fungible items.
Twenty years ago I drove to Las Vegas and had gotten a good idea of prices for a room. Stayed the end of June till July 2 at a nice rate. I couldn't keep the room I had so I went down to the Stratosphere which is not in an ideal strip location and stood in line for twenty minutes. When I finally got to ask for a room it was triple and a mandatory two nights. When I asked why, I was told it was because people came to watch the fireworks on that date. I just wanted to lose more money but due to that they saved me some since I left Las Vegas.
ReplyDeleteI look at those that are talking about it or trying it as test
ReplyDeletecases. Their success or failure will be on them as others
of the industry will take it under advisement.
For food there will always be other brands and sources and
even if not cheaper it can be better quality or simple as
small business support.
Those loyal to that brand may stay or there will be hacks
to defeat it. Others will go elsewhere.
People tend to have strong opinions of their auto, truck, or
motocycles. that the new prices justify repairs that might
be a give it up in the past.
People mostly tolerate a lot until they don't.
Eck!
Reminds me of the sign one used to see over cash registers in small stores and taverns: "Prices subject to change according to customer's attitude."
ReplyDelete