https://www.foodandwine.com/wendys-introducing-dynamic-pricing-8600506
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.
Raise prices at peak times? ✅💰
Lower prices ever? ❌📈
Properly done dynamic pricing rewards customers with cheap prices for going at off-peak times, and the opposite on-peak. However this other form of "surge pricing" is really just price gouging under another label
It's not like Wendy's exists on an island, there are replacement products, and usually extremely close by. It will start to become a function of the value of people's time, stand in a short line to pay exorbitant costs at Wendy's or stand in a long line to pay cheaper at Burgerking or whatever. (Honestly I don't know why these places are frequented at all when you can usually find a pub burger that's way higher quality for the same price or cheaper)
Because in that scenario you need to think about where to eat, and you need to wait a few minutes for the burger. People go to fast food places because they immediately recognize the logos and know they can eat there without having to think about it, and they'll happily pay more money for a worse product if they can get it right now without having to leave their car. And they'll happily pay this higher price for the same reason. And they'll view the normal price as being the "cheaper" price and probably go more often during the off-peak hours to "save money" as well. It's a win-win-win for Wendy's.
America has been emphasizing convenience over all else for decades for this exact reason. It's cheaper and more lucrative for a company to provide a quick, easy product than a better quality one, so they just shoved advertisements into our faces until we were collectively convinced that that's what we want, too.
There's also the large long-distance traveler market which they have sewn up. You could bring two days' worth of meals with you or you could stop at the Wendy's at the next interstate exit and not have to bother with that.
All fast food chains are shitting the bed recently. I'm in Canada and took my wife and daughter to burger king, $60 with tax for 3 fucking meals and a couple of turnovers. I remember the days when I would go to McDonald's with $5 and that was enough to get a big Mac meal, now it barely buys you a coffee
The other totally bizarre part of this is:
Tanner stated, “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.”
I realize AI is just a corporate buzzword now, but I would love to hear him try to explain what the fuck that means.
It's going to bilndly pile all the best selling ingredients together and suggest some monstrosity lol
You know, I’d fuck with it. It would be kind of incredible to watch a cook improv insane suggestions from an AI, if they’re on-board and compensated, etc, etc.
AI nowadays is becoming synonymous with algorithms. There's no artificial intelligence, just a narrow set of rules. If a computer does anything for you, they call it AI.
It's pretty obvious that he intends to leverage AI to facilitate upward revenue dynamics by synergizing their backward overflow. How was that not clear? /s
That's a stupid question!
The only way to do that would be to reverse the polarity in the matter stream, but that requires mark VII Heisenberg compensators, and they have to be tuned just right... So the machines will constantly be down for repairs, like a McDonald's ice "cream" machine.
Person typically orders chicken sandwich and frosty together in the Wendy’s app.
All knowing AI uses 300 million volts to conclude that comboing those together in the app may result in a sale
AI is truly the future.
joke's on them. unless I had a hankering for a non-meal item before I started ordering, I'm not getting it. and almost always I don't have a hankering.
Wendy's is not in a position to do this, they will try it but the locations will die. McDonald's could pull it off but they know better.
It's really too bad I don't go there.
because now they will never know that I'm boycotting them.
Perhaps this will end well with people realizing there are better options and force them to reconsider
Never again. Remember you vote with your dollars. Everyone one of them a hard earned way to show people what you value and what you are willing to be subjected to.
Yeah, won't work. I quit eating fast garbage food 30 years ago, but for every one of me there are thousands who just don't care.
Last year the couple times I've eaten at Wendy's was because my friends and I had coupons. Once the coupons start saying 30% off instead of "meal for 7.99" I'll know what is happening.
What a strange action for the worst burger chain. The competitors have better chicken sandwiches too.
Their $5 meal is probably the cheapest but it also just feels... not so good. I miss the Wendy's of 20 years ago.
mcdonald's is getting raked over the coals for their higher prices. wendy's saying they're going to set higher pricing during busy times in this environment is going to push people off to a place like burger king, and everyone loses in that situation.
