Wendy's, burned by CEO comment, vows no price surges for burgers

https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/wendys-will-not-implement-surge-pricing-ceo-comment-causes-online-stir-2024-02-28/

by Jun8 • 2 years ago

13 10 2 years ago

reuters.com

Jun82• 2 years ago

This was idiotic on the CEO’s part, surge pricing is universally loathed by customers, only grudgingly tolerated when done by Uber/Lyft.

OTOH, equating dynamic pricing with surge pricing (which the public does) is not entirely correct: you can dynamically price down, too, eg run time-limited campaigns in the store. This is the killer app of electronic shelf labels that’s currently underutilized.

bdjsiqoocwk• 2 years ago

I don't understand. In the first paragraph you say it was stupid because consumers hate it. Then on the second paragraph you say it's underutilized elsewhere.

Why is it underutilized in your favorite use case and shouldn't be utilized in the CEO case?

boppo1• 2 years ago

I think he means the companies should emphasize that prices can go down too. Like 'get a burger, fries and shake for $0.75 at off times!'

My guess is they had no plans to do the low part of dynamic pricing though.

throwaway1188992• 2 years ago

Dude was CEO for less than a month before trying this bullshit. It’s just what MBAs do, and they’re the sole reason behind what we’re starting to call enshittification. He went into that job with that idea, and I can guarantee all his other MBA snakes are thinking about ways to implement this.

science4sail• 2 years ago

I don't entirely understand the difference between dynamic pricing and surge pricing - couldn't one achieve the same revenue numbers by setting the base price to the "surge price" and offer dynamic discounts? I.e. Surge sales?

bell-cot• 2 years ago

You know that a fast food CEO is spending far too much time in the C-suite (or on Wall Street), vs. around actual customers, when he says something like ...

deprecative• 2 years ago

There's nothing they can say to make this right. Fast food is already egregiously priced and Wendy's only wants to make it worse for consumers by raising prices otherwise. They can call it what they will but prices have almost doubled in my area. A single medium meal costs at least $8. If the quality of ingredients were in line I wouldn't have near as much of an issue. If this was what we had to do to get liveable wages in fast food workers in the US, again, I'm happy for this. Unfortunately, we all know all this would do is give the person who thought of it a bonus, increase executive pay disparity, and further reduce the point of a fast food stop.

throwaway1188992• 2 years ago

Yep, they’ve lost me and I usually get something from there 3-4 times a week because it’s the closest thing nearby. I estimate I’ve spent a few thousand there after starting to work from home two years ago.

This idea simply cannot be tolerated.

Wendy's, burned by CEO comment, vows no price surges for burgers

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