Surge in Wendy's complaints exposes limits to consumer tolerance of unstable prices

MicroWave@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 446 points –
Surge in Wendy's complaints exposes limits to consumer tolerance of unstable prices
apnews.com
66

You are viewing a single comment

The whole idea of a franchise is so people can get the same menu at the same quality at the same price no matter where they are. Having dynamic pricing means you can't even be assured of the price at a single location, let alone being in a new city with an unfamiliar restaurant.

If you don't know what you are going to be able to buy with your $5, then might as well go to someplace different.

Um, the whole idea of a franchise is for the owner to make money.

For the consumer I am pretty sure they meant. There is a lot of surprises and uncertainty but when you go to a place like that you know exactly what you are going to get for the price you expect.

McDonald's already has different prices from the location next to my house, and the one 10 minutes away by my work. Aren't they franchised as well?

Yeah, what op said isn't exactly accurate. There are promos that will all be the same price.

But like, a McDonald's near me offers jalapenos, and another does not. It's not all the same. It's all 95% the same.

Also, not every McDonald's is franchised! But iirc <1%. I think it's like a few dozen stores are genuine McDonald's brand stores and not franchises.

Depends on where you live I guess. In my country (not USA), no matter where you go all franchises of major chain restaurants have exactly the same prices. Having worked adjacent to the fast food industry in my country and dealing with the brand owners, price and consistency is very important, not only for their customer satisfaction, but also it made the marketing material easier.

Ironically, when I worked in this industry, part of the appeal of the company that I worked for is we allowed dynamic pricing exactly like what Wendy's is proposing. The brand owners rejected the idea because marketing felt it would confuse customers, and technical didn't want to do it because consolidating the incoming data and and standardising the POS data across franchises was a nightmare.

same price no matter where they are

This is not at all true. Here is a map showing Big Mac prices across the US:

https://mccheapest.com

I wonder if this map is a good indicator of general cost of living?

It is all true in the Country I live in. And the other Countries I have visited.

I guess not all Countries are the same, and forget that people in the US think everyone else is also from the US.

forget that people in the US think everyone else is also from the US.

Says the person who made a sweeping worldwide generalisation

Whenever I am abroad I usually go to a franchise place at least once just out of curiosity. Rarely buy anything. The prices are usually identical.