It’s been many many years since I’ve last eaten at Wendy’s. Not sure why I’d start now.
Dave is ordering Molotov Cocktails, you say?
There isn’t much traffic, we need to increase the price per order to keep our profits up… Errr our employees “paid”.
There’s a rush, we need to increase the price per order because demand is so high and we want more money, errr to better pay our… Wait no we just like money.
I’m not driving to lunch when I don’t know how much lunch is going to cost, gas price changes are already wild enough.
Also Wendy’s isn’t good enough to pay a premium for their food. I’ll go literally anywhere else and be happy.
Its not what they said. They said they are rolling out dynamic display boards. Don’t trust shitty reporters
From the first section:
Under the test, burgers, Frosties, and other menu items will have “dynamic prices,” costing more during times of increased demand.
I didn’t read this shit article. I read what Wendy’s actually said
Don’t get me wrong I have a short attention span too but if you’re gonna toss negativity around maybe finish the first paragraph? But also how did you get past the first sentence?
The price is what’s dynamically changing on those boards, you realize
Here’s the statement from their CEO Kirk Tanner (emphasis mine):
Beginning as early as 2025, we will begin testing more enhanced features like dynamic pricing and daypart offerings, along with AI-enabled menu changes and suggestive selling,” he said. “As we continue to show the benefit of this technology in our company-operated restaurants, franchisee interest in digital menu boards should increase, further supporting sales and profit growth across the system.
Here’s the Oxford English Definition of “dynamic pricing” since 1929:
the practice of varying the price for a product or service to reflect changing market conditions, in particular the charging of a higher price at a time of greater demand.
Referring to reporters, investors, and consumers as “shitty” for taking a company at their word is just silly.
Lol cheers blud
What if I just sat in the drive through and said I’m not moving until the prices drop below surge?
Then they ask you to leave, and when you don’t, they call the cops to remove you.
Pretend you have a flat tire
Yeah, sure. Except the cashier called saying “dude doesn’t want to move away” and they get you for lying to them
Then the car behind you does it
No it doesn’t because people aren’t stupid to risk an arrest for barely any money
Isn’t this just a badly branded happy hour?
The sad hour
Evil product idea: track the eyes of customers and increase the price of anything they look at for 20 seconds.
Verification cans when tho?
Immediately do.
Another place to avoid.
I’ve been to wendy’s a handful of times (I don’t eat much fast food in general). Thanks to this news, I’ll never consider there again.
LOL, the asshole CEO called it an “enhanced feature”.
I’d say go for it, but if Wendy’s does it, everyone else will, so the likelihood that it will hurt their business is unlikely.
I am so MASSIVELY angrily fuckdamn violently TIRED of CEOs constantly committing capital violence and telling us it is for our own good.
I’m about half a hair away from dropping everything and moving up to our family cabin as a naked hermit living off the land.
They’re outright accepting less customers in favor of those willing to pay higher prices.
That’s great for a quarter, maybe a year, maybe 5. At what point does it catch up and you’ve trained everyone to stop eating fast food because you wanted to charge more than people can dedicate to food?
I cannot fathom how no one else sees this. They’re trading low-value customers for high-value customers. Sometimes this makes sense. I did it when I had a little PC repair business. Low-value customers were a PITA and didn’t make me any money, not worth my time.
But maybe they’re smarter than you and I? Lemmy tells me cheap fast food is a right, as if there’s no other choice. If that’s how people are thinking and acting, instead of shying away from fast food prices? Fuck 'em. Let them pay.
PC repair is a low volume, high touch, high skill business. If you set aside a single $100 customer for a $500 one, it can work since both exist.
Hamburgers of the Wendy’s grade are a volume and convenience game. For every thousand $4 customers, can they replace them with 667 $6 customers?
I’ve noticed an interesting phenomenon in the last couple years. The cheapest options and biggest chains ramped their prices much faster than the places a notch or two better. The gap has closed enough that suddenly those “notch or two better” places are more competitive than before-- if it will be $50 instead of $30 to take the family to Wendy’s, why not stretch to $65 for get Five Guys or a local place instead.
What the fuck do you think you’re going to get for 4 bucks that will be anything close to a decent meal at Wendy’s?
Or I could just eat at a proper restaurant.
I hate to tell you this, but…
People are even less price sensitive at restaurants. They’ve been doing this longer than fast food has.
Last week I spent $21 on two California rolls and a miso soup. I felt scammed and won’t go back there.
I spent half an hour today searching my area for good lunch specials. Ended up getting a cup of soup and a scoop of chicken salad for $12.
I’ll have to travel about 20 minutes to another side of the city to try some lunch specials at a Chinese place and see if that’s any better.
This situation IS getting ridiculous enough that someone can come along with an actual good deal and make money on volume again. But in this decade that’s a radical, risky business plan.
Sushi is expensive in general. I can’t really comment on soup and chicken salad since I’m not much of a fan of either. I usually go for Chinese or Thai for the best deals. When fast food is charging $6 just for a burger, I’d rather pay $10 for Pad Thai. Yes it’s more expensive, but the value is much better.
Do you really think the world is ready for a luxury fast food chain?
Shit I remember when Wendy’s had the best dollar menu of all the chains…
I think we need to seperate the ability for a corporation to make decisions of its own free will from the notion of fairness and equity for a society which allowed a franchise like Wendy’s to be created. They’re giving many of their supporters the middle finger after thinking they found a winning lottery ticket.
I can understand being pissed off about it as someone who isn’t rich, but I also understand it’s a system I have no control over other than what I choose to buy myself. I won’t support Wendys if they want to choose profits over people. It’s sad to see more of the world turn into a heartless corporate hellhole.
I personally hope they got their numbers wrong and they fail.
and you’ve trained everyone
Training is a great, important word here. There’s a huge lag between setting prices and having them affect your business. Most people will try a new place once, regardless of the price. The first time they go they’ll judge the price by the style of restaurant. It’s not until the second time they’ll factor the price into their decision. Companies only care about “training” when it goes the other way, when it’s a good reputation they can liquidate through enshittification.
When they’re on the downside of training all they think about is “MONEY NOW” while they’re effectively scamming their customers and slowly destroying their customer base.
There’s a hot chicken place near me that’s having exactly this problem. The downtown, novel location in the middle of the walking market (a tourist attraction) was a bit expensive, but good. They expanded out to the suburbs, kept the downtown prices, and no longer give sweet tea for free. And somehow they’re surprised that less than a year after opening they’re lucky to have three customers at once. I’ll give you a hint. You’re charging $10 for a chicken breast on a slice of wonder bread. Chicken used to be popular because it was cheap.
https://hotchickentakeover.com/menu/
Compare to this 2005 Popeye’s commercial. 11 pieces of chicken for $10. Not a single breast. Look me in the eye and tell me prices have actually risen 11x in 20 years.
I agree it sucks. But I can understand the rationale. At peak times, if people try to go to Wendy’s, and it’s too busy, they go somewhere else. At this point the demand is higher than supply. Clearly increasing cost will create more profit.
Long term they are probably hoping that people decide to not all come in a peak times, and the peak is more spread out. This way lines are never long enough for people to just say fuck this and then leave. Less lost sales = more profit.
In reality I can see people just not going, so I agree with you that long term they see less sales. But honestly who really knows, people can be pretty irrational.
They’re outright accepting less customers in favor of those willing to pay higher prices.
This is exactly it. I have seen folks saying we are entering a new kind of economy: a kind of “whale economy”. After seeing it work for mobile apps and games, other normal companies are wising up to the fact that your revenue will be the same if you charge 10 times what you were and lose 9/10 of your customers as a result… but your expenses will be lower. less labor, less equipment, less materials, less time. The 1/10 who stay and pay the high prices out themselves as “whales”, the people who probably have enough money to never care and will probably just keep spending even if the prices keep going up and up and up.
The majority of us are about to become low value customers… and therefore, not have easy access to common goods and services any longer. This will make perfect short term sense to each company doing this, but will promptly collapse what’s left of our economy into ruin.
COVID and recent financial policies changed our economy from “charge what it costs + a reasonable profit margin” to “what’s it worth to you?”
No CEO gives a shit about anything beyond the next quarter.
And it’s driving our world economy into the ground.
And it’s driving our world
economyinto the ground.That is sadly more accurate.
Fast food is already almost as expensive as regular restaurant food… the only benefit is the drive through for those in a hurry travelling through town. If it gets any more expensive it will be easier to just phone in your order at a regular restaurant for pick up.
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they’re comparing it to regular restaurant food, so they prepare it there too.
Alternate timeline: Surge priced fast-food becomes a status symbol. People buy used Wendy’s packaging in order to hide their homemade food and not be made fun of.
They’re going to enshitify every single aspect of our lives.
If people didn’t keep paying for it, it wouldn’t work.
Unfortunately it’s a sound business model because people will absolutely fork over the money regardless of how much they bitch about it in the process.
The enshitification will continue indefinitely until people stop buying the shit.Luckily, at least for now, most people can sail the high seas, or hit the secondary market, or cook the things they want in order to avoid the price gouging and enshittification. You can get ten frozen burger patties at the grocery store fairly economically in most of the country and then spice and cook them up yourself.
When Trump is reelected in November I expect it to get much worse and very fast.
most people can (…) cook the things they want
That’s far from true. Millions live in food deserts and the working poor often don’t have the money and/or energy for it after working extreme hours for atrociously low wages.
And that’s not even taking into account those of us who are unable to cook even simple dishes for ourselves due to disability.
When Trump is reelected in November I expect it to get much worse and very fast.
That’s probably true of literally everything…
< ties onion to belt >
Back when I was your age, restaurants had lunch and dinner menus with different prices.
Sit down restaurants still have lunch pricing now. Lunch is generally a smaller portion, not a lower price for the same thing.
Fast food has been priced the same throughout the day as long as I remember.
This is neither of those things. This is pricing based on current demand and charging more for the same thing just because other people want the same thing. For fast food, higher demand is generally better because the ratio of income to staff is higher than during slow periods.
This is horrifying.
lol does wendies get “surges”?
Usually after you eat it.
Don’t think I’ve ever seen one with a line longer than single digits…
The only time I’ve seen a line at my local Wendy’s was when McDonald’s was closed for a water leak and burger king didn’t have any employees to stay open.
The Great Resignation was such a glorious time.
I bet they wont, or they try it and then back-peddle when their stores see a 15% reduction in sales
They wouldn’t do it without crunching the numbers first.
They may lose 15% of their customers, but the ones that stay bring in 25% more money with less capital spent on labour and resources by having less customers.
The point isnt making good food for people. The point is funneling money towards the conglomerate that owns the Wendy’s franchise. This is capitalism.
Strong point, have an upvoot
For nostalgia’s sake (I worked there for a couple of years), I like to have a little Wendy’s when I’m back in the US (they sold/merged their Japan business with another company. No frosty here). Not going to happen ever again if they do this shit.
