How Do Fast Food Restaurants Use Pricing to Drive Traffic?

Oct 08, 2019 How Do Fast Food Restaurants Use Pricing to Drive Traffic?

Pricing

Fast food restaurants use pricing to drive your behavior.  Most people are familiar with a selection of food offerings at Fast Food restaurants that are heavily discounted.  These have many names such as the Dollar Menu or the Value Menu, etc.  The restaurants are trying to get you in and have you bring some friends.  Almost all of the time, some of the people in a group will buy items off the regular menu.  They know this and they are trying to BUILD TRAFFIC.  In general, these menu items are sold below the true fully loaded cost (food, labor, rent, etc.) of those items but sometimes even below the food cost alone.

This pricing strategy is a variation on the loss leader technique where a store tries to get you in and then up sells you a different item.  Restaurants do this because it works.  When it was first tried, critics thought they were crazy.  But it turns out to be very successful in most cases.  So now many places use it.

For more information or to get help with your pricing strategy, click on this link https://apollogr.com/optimize-pricing/

Bryan B Mason

Apollo Consulting Group, Providence, RI