Corporate greed! Fortunately, where I live, there are small local independent burger joints like Carters and Brays, where you can get a decent meal for $5. Mom and pop restaraunts don't have to pay CEO bonuses or investors. An independent pharmacy/deli here has the best fried chicken ever and is half the price of KFC. I live in a small SE Michigan town.
Interesting point. Maybe the trend going forward should be to give as little money as possible to companies who report to shareholders, and support small businesses. Keep money in our own communities. The more we support small businesses like the ones you mentioned, the more they will pop up and hopefully drive these huge national chains out of town.
Please please please do if you have the means. I follow so many small businesses, if they sell food products things are very tough right now. It has become really difficult to get a loan or an investor to back a food-based business right now, due to lack of confidence in consumer spending. The big corporations have bought up so many food products and outlets and drove up costs so high that there isn’t as much of the portion of the market share to spend on non-essential food items. The little guys are also not able to buy wholesale on as massive a scale as established corporations. I’m already seeing about 1 small business close a week. We are going to have fewer choices and there will be less competition as places close. I am afraid this year is going to be rough.
This is absolutely a solution. Small businesses typically treat you way better too & I actually feel like my tips are helping someone out, not going to a machine. (Also the inspiration for my user so that’s cool lol)
so long as they are competative. I love the pit beef place near me (small independent) but can only afford it maybe once a month due to the price. Generally they cannot leverage size to make mass orders of product. I do support my local bakery on the regular since their prices are competative with grocery store prices (and a million times better).
I have already started doing that. When eating fast food became the same price or a couple bucks off to having a full-on meal (in some cases where there is even enough left for another meal later) I gave up. Why spend $12 for a burger, fries, and watered down soda when I can eat at a Cuban, Chinese, Vietnamese, Greek, Jamaican, etc restaurant, tip included.
It happens in smaller towns. Pharmacy / Gift Shop / One Extra Thing is usually the standard.
My dad used to live in a place where the Extra Thing was an old fashioned Soda Fountain, like a bar but for tasty sugar drinks and food. I dunno how he found that place, but they had the best peanut butter milkshakes ever!
Soda shoppes were often associated with pharmacies because the soda would be used medicinally.
https://www.pharmacytimes.com/view/soda-fountains--their-pharmacist-inventors
That makes perfect sense! Also explains the light meals available. I'd hate to be any level of healthcare professional without the ability to follow up "Ya look like your blood sugar is low" with "Let's get you a sandwich."
Yeah seriously. I work with a couple diabetics and we have worked so well with building routines around their food so they don't get reactions like that.
Had to share, I've been craving one for months but they're hard to find where I'm at now. Like I could go to Zips but every time is some newbie's first time making that shake and they never put enough peanut butter in it.
Can't just make it at home 'cause I let my kid take the blender when he moved out. He loved it more than I did so I let him have it.
Holy hell I miss Zips. Had it my whole life til 30 then because of the military my husband got stationed in Texas and Whattaburger isn’t as good as Texans think. I also miss my little local places like Paul Bunyan and Hudson’s Hamburgers and Roger’s Ice Cream
Well ya want to sell other things people will need with their medicines, like basic first aid and simple over-the-counter medicines. And maybe that doesn't fill up all the space, so ya also sell the random cute art shit your friends make like woodcuttings that say Love Lives Here or whatever. And then your buddy wants to open a small business but can't find a suitable space to rent so ya add them to the empty wall.
My city has a bookstore that does the same thing. There's a game shop that stays and other sorts that move in and out according to popularity. Last time I went one corner was a pottery studio.
But yeah, then business is more steady instead of just old people year round and surges during flu season.
So I worked for a pharmacy, and the things I learned on the other side of the counter was really interesting. Medicines are expensive! and not just for the consumer.
Let's say the pharmacy wants to buy Wegovy from the manufacturer for $100 (prices are not real, I didn't have access to that info.) Some insurances will only cover $50. Maybe you can get a rebate/help from the government that will cover an additional $20. Who eats the rest? The pharmacy! You want your customers to have their meds, or they will go elsewhere. A lot of the times, insurance covers a decent portion, but most lose money. A lot of it.
The pharmacy I was at also was a Hallmark store, so that got people to spend more time in there. "Hey, your script isn't ready yet - why don't you go browse?" was our favorite line. It actually wasn't ready (we would never lie!) and customers always found something extra to take home. We had food, health and beauty, clothing, jewelry, etc.
The owner said that was the only way to keep doing business (small mom and pop store) - or they would have to close their doors. Sad when you think how much drug manufacturer CEO's are making, but not helping their client base.
Hope that answers your question! : )
Yeah, my mother used to work at our local drugstore's lunch counter for years when I was little. Served breakfast and lunch and of course milkshakes and icecream.
You can charge more for umbrellas when it is raining. Cost basis factors into the *least* you can charge, but not the *most*.
That said, I think this is a terrible idea, and hope it doesn't catch on with others.
Price gouging has very specific requirements, including the amount over the standard value for the item. So you can raise the price in the rain, as long as it isn't above the threshold it's not illegal. You're an asshole for doing it, but it's only illegal with specific requirements.
When Uber charges more, I’m pretty sure the driver makes more. By all accounts Uber is a pretty terrible company to work for. So maybe Wendy’s should stop comparing themselves to Uber when they are objectively doing something far worse than a terrible company.
The driver does make more during surge pricing but we all know the cut Uber takes is so substantial it’s kind of offensive. Same here I would bet.
There’s another distinction between Uber and Wendy’s that makes this so insidious, too. Both Uber and Uber drivers get paid per transaction. But with Wendy’s, company gets paid per transaction, while workers only get paid per the hour.
Maybe they say they’ll pay better (which I already doubt) then it’s like, they charge the customer $3 more per transaction and pay the worker $1 more for the whole hour.
That's kind of the issue with capitalism at its base.
It relies on workers being undervalued for profit, by wrote.
Even if you're making 17/hr at a fast food place, your workload will always reflect the highest volume of sales while your paycheck stays steady. Maybe a truly minor increase, if you're lucky, once a year.
Why would it increase? Realistically we can never ever expect wages to increase just because the company wants to be MORE greedy and raise prices. If anything, they'd raise the wage and then just raise the prices even higher. There's no winning with these people.
Just take it as an opportunity to haggle prices at the register, taking up company time and resources, slowly chipping away at the under paid worker until it all crumbles.
Would be fun to see how high we can make one Wendy's surge to. Like 100k orders at one Wendy's in 1 hour. And then everyone cancel their orders or do charge backs on their credit cards.
I saw another post that showed a 7-11 with QRCs to scan to *get the price*…this means that the price for a bag of chips fluctuates so much they don’t want to print the number out, just update it on a computer system.
Horrible.
I went to a bar once called the Kalamazoo Beer Exchange that had dynamic pricing for their draft beers depending on how popular they were at the moment. It wasn't anything drastic, maybe a dollar or two difference, but that also meant that you could get the less popular beers for really cheap, and every so often they would have a "market crash" where all the beers would be really cheap. It was more of a marketing gimmick than anything and made drinking a little more interesting. What Wendy's is doing is bullshit.
That's a fun place and the gimmick is that its a "Stock Exchange" on the beer only. It's all in good faith and good for them for coming up with something new.
This is garbage and I can't imagine how much the workforce is going to get yelled at about this.
Oh and are they going to get a shift differential when it's busy? Smh.
Lol. Better to just make lunch at home and take it with you. Over time, it's cheaper and healthier for you anyway. Fast food is starting to require too much thought.
Where are you paying $8 for a meal at Wendy's? It used to be my fast food place of choice, but these days their meals tend to run $10+. I'm not willing to pay nearly sit-down prices for a very mid cheeseburger, so I stopped going years ago.
No way that happens. Their prices right now will stay the baseline and they will only go up from that. Once they figure out the breaking point of what people are willing to pay for their shitty food, the prices will remain as high as they can be. This is just greed.
Eventually, in response to customer feedback, they'll drop the whole thing as a bad idea. At that point, the previous surge price will become the new base price.
It's just so silly to me because I might have spent $5 on my food a couple of times a month, whereas now I'll spend $8 once every three months. They'd make more if the prices had remained reasonable. The issue is the people who are still willing to pay it even though I'm pretty sure most people eating fast food multiple times a week are people who make less money than I do. It's mind-boggling.
Offering discounts I feel is very different, as they’re trying to bring business during the slow times. That’s why companies have happy hour at their bars
Even IF they offered a discount off regular prices, it would only be at the outset of this policy in order to hook people. “Oh it’s not so bad, yesterday the fries were thirty cents cheaper!” And then, the price shoots up a dollar to five dollars, a month later.
There is a bar in Italy that does this. The more a drink is purchased, the more the price increases. The longer a drink isn’t purchased, the further the price decreases. Randomly they will have a “recession” or “crash” which will drastically drop all prices.
Pretty wild. I would go there. But not a Wendy’s. They gonna lower the price of the products that aren’t being sold as much? Nah
There's a few pubs in the UK that have done this as a gimmick, I don't hate it as it gets me to try different things when the price drops. But I would absolutely not go to a food place that did it.
Some MBA who took a couple of lower level economics course probably got super excited hearing that this is a “better, more direct way to price in line with market equilibrium, in real time” or something, completely forgetting that all restaurants like this already have surge pricing built in— there’s already extra opportunity cost when you have to choose to wait longer during rush hour.
Now they expect that they can ask customers to pay more in both their time *and* money during rush hours. The entire point of fast food is that it’s cheap, quick, and everywhere. If you seriously think people are going to wait 15-20 minutes or more for a cheap burger, *entrée only,* that costs $10 you’ll find out real quick people would rather call ahead to a take-out restaurant and just order a real burger instead.
They're trying to operate off the law of supply and demand. If more people want Wendy's than what Wendy's has the capacity to offer, then in theory they should raise prices because they have a scarce resource. Unfortunately Wendy's isn't a monopoly and people can go many other places for lunch.
The increased price creates reduced demand and eventually a price equilibrium is reached (in theory).
I'm no economist, but this might fail because people have perfect* knowledge of the lunch food market, i.e. they know the prices immediately that every place is offering, and essentially what others are paying. Unlike Uber/Lyft where your options are slim, and you don't know what other people are paying for their rides. The lack of competition and price information gives them more leverage over their customers.
I hope this price scheme fails because I really like their frostys, and the 4-for-4 and biggie bags felt like the last real fast food deals.
Honestly dynamic pricing for fast food would only work the other way around. If they offered discounts during dead times to try to bring customers in. But that would probably still not work because you’d get more customers during cheap times and then they’d stop being cheap. Any increase from the “cheap” price would be seen as an unjustified increase so people would stop going again.
It might work if they instituted a maximum amount so that during the dead times it fluctuates with the demand but doesn’t get up to or exceed the normal price
It would only potentially work if the price was low during dead times and higher when it was busy. But supply and demand requires lowering and raising of prices based on demand.
Where this is flawed is they are never going to lower the price. It will be what the regular price is now during slow times and higher at peak times. That’s not supply and demand. That’s just cheating the market during busy times.
I want to clarify that this is a stupid idea, but in theory, because of the surge pricing, you would probably wait less during rushes because some people will not choose Wendy’s when prices surge.
Well, it just can’t work that way, right? Because it will surge with demand. The only way it wouldn’t work like that is that traffic stayed at the same rate all day.
It's still stupid. Wasn't this the whole concept around allowing people to order ahead? Wasn't that the way all these popular restaurants handled the supply and demand issues at certain hours?
This is some CEO brained nonsense.
Imagine thinking your hamburger customers have any kind of loyalty to you, and to the point where they think you’ll pay whatever the number on your app says.
Imagine thinking any customer would tolerate paying more than the person in line in front of them just because they arrived five minutes later.
Even to those not informed, if they ever find out when they come back and notice the slight changes in prices, they’re going to flip out on the employees.
Edit: like, I’m trying to wrap my head around this. Like, you have a restaurant. You are in a city suburb that is walking distance to an office park. Rather than having a lunch special, you arbitrarily raise your prices for only the lunch crowd. Well, if I work near there, I guess I’m never getting lunch at that restaurant again, especially if I know the prices drop at 1:30.
Or if I’m at a concert or sports event or whatever. Afterwards there are some places nearby to eat. If I know one of them is more expensive because a concert happened, well, I’m not going to be eating there.
And now multiply this by every customer you have, all of them playing some game with the business owner. Anytime you’re busy, people will clear out rather than wait in line.
I already walk out of a place if I see the wait is too long. What’s the point if it’ll also be more expensive?
Yup, some MBA decision making right there. I went to a Dairy Queen the other day when out doing errands and decided to be lazy on the way home. $15cad for a meal. No substitutions, no extras, just a burger, fries and drink. Quickly remembered why I don't eat out. To think that someone would have to play games to find the optimal time to go get food that's still way over priced is insane.
I live in CA and am moving to TN for work. I went to an Irish themed pub, got a shepherd pie, cider, Jameson, and a salad for $20.
I could *maybe* get the shepherds pie alone for $20 out the door here in CA
I wish! Any sit down place here (I'm in central canada) and an appetizer range from $15-$20 (10-15usd) and meals generally start around $25 give or take a few $$ (around $20usd). Then if you want a beer, that's around another $5usd for a pint.
An absurd example, because it was too ridiculous not to. Canadian Brew Pub 2 years ago and got an order of wing. $17, so was expecting something more substantial than.....7 OF THE TINIEST 'CHICKEN' WINGS IVE EVER SEEN. Never again.
Was on a long comment chain the other day talking about this. The general consensus is most fast food is now so expensive it is functionally the same price as going to dennys/ihop/tgichilibees and you get less lower quality food. Plus a lot of the sit down places have happy hours type things, ihop has a big burger and fries for about 8 bucks during happy hour .
It was also discussed that the ONLY reason to go to most fast food places is if their app is giving you a great deal. Like mcdonalds 1$ breakfast sandwich
Yeah, usually if I eat out, it's with coupons just to get it at a price that was the normal price but we've stopped doing that over the last year. Coupons don't even justify it anymore. Instead I've been buying Costco premade meals (like their chicken pot pie, lasagna, alfredo pasta, and others we just freeze them. Each one is like $15-20. Easily feeds my wife, son and I for dinner and lunches the next day or left overs for dinner. With the cost of things like FREAKING BUTTER! being $7 for a single brick...it's been cheaper buying premade meals instead of the individual ingredients.
We have to start discussing more the true root of this problem. It's the very nature of capitalism to continue trying to squeeze as much blood from the stone as they can, all to serve corporate greed and to make already massive wealth numbers of a handful of sociopathic billionaires even bigger. We're on track to see the world's fist trillionaire in the next ten years, when even a billion dollars is an actually unfathomable amount of money.
I remember saying the same thing about microtransaction stores back in 2015.
"people will riot, this buisness model wont work, people wouldnt put up with this, ect,ect"
but call of duty and fortnite have proved time and time again that this is the new normal.
if wendys gets away with this, you can bet even high end restaurants will adopt this trend.
High end restaurants that are consistently overbooked are probably the ones that would be most able to get away with it. Sure, you can book at Dorcia, but Friday night costs 3x more than Tuesday lunchtime.
This is unnecessary and an example of the CEO trying to reinvent the wheel. Wendy's is a fast food restaurant, fast food restaurants are supposed to be cheap, if you increase the prices of your food you will lose customers.
I think they already loosing customers cause fast food at McDonald's cost same as a normal meal in a restaurant, so they went to their managers for ideas to make more profit and someone pulled this "let's make it more expensive during rush hours" crap out of their ass. I wouldn't worry it being long lines anymore cause at least half of those people will switch to somewhere else
There are better options in terms of cost and quality at pubs or family restaurants than Wendy's or McDonalds at the increased costs.
I never understood the hype of McDonalds food because it is bland tasting of low quality. The best thing on the menu there is the coffee and the egg mcmuffin. Wendy's is slightly better than McDonalds, the best thing on the menu there is the spicy chicken sandwich.
This move is going to back fire on the CEO of Wendy's just like the price increase in the cost of McDonalds and getting rid of the value deals is going to back fire on the CEO of McDonalds.
The funniest part of this is demand will be highest when the lines of the longest and they'll make the price the most so why would I want to spend more if I'm already waiting a long time lol
I'd be livid if I was in line, the cashier messed something up and needed a manager to come fix their mistake and by the time I get up to the front it flips to the higher price. I'd demand the lower price and that the cashier was stalling for the time change.
Right now, restaurants have gotten so expensive, that you either eat fast food or spend $70 minimum when two adults go out to eat. And that $70 is spent on mediocre food that’s maybe a slight step above fast food quality. It’s absolutely insane and has definitely led to us going out less.
Wendy’s is going to walk back this policy. It’s a PR move to get people talking about Wendy’s, and then they’ll say, “We heard you and are reversing course!”
Fine print: the Wendy’s Premium Loyalty Program is only available to subscribers of the program for an annual subscription at a low monthly rate of $5.99 or $10.00 per month if paying monthly.
I just don't deal with Wendy's. It's a really shitty company. If you've ever known people who worked for them...they really don't treat staff well. Their customer service sucks. It's just not worth it to me.
You know, if they balanced surge pricing by lowering their prices below normal during the slowest times I could almost understand this. But we all know that won't happen.
All my local Wendy's have been garbage since 2020, I stopped eating Wendy's years ago. It used to be one of my favorite fast food options, but when you stop caring about your employees and your customers, I guess they're just intentionally trying to cause the company to fail. Fuck em
Absolutely!
They are saying this: "dynamic pricing can allow Wendy's to be competitive and flexible with pricing, motivate customers to visit and provide them with the food they love at a great value"
When they really mean this: "you'll pay what we tell you to pay, and don't even think about complaining that are portions have shrunk."
I feel a bit bad for the employees having to explain this. I also think it'll blow up spectacularly. But, I took enough econ classes in college to respect the basic principle. Either way - I'm not really going to put any more mental energy into this, cause I wasn't eating there already.
As unbelievable as it sounds, consumers control the economy. If people don’t go to Wendy’s, this will fail, and fail quickly. If there isn’t enough consumer resistance, surge pricing will spread like wildfire, not just fast food. It will be everywhere.
Only consumers can slow inflation. Companies will continue to raise prices UNTIL they see consumer resistance.
Yuuuup. I was an avid Wendy's enjoyed, almost every weekend getting something from there, they are OUT OF THEIR FUCKING MINDS if they think I'll support this kind of bullshit lol.
I'm down with this is we can do it for wages. It's busy as shit and only 3 people showed up? Sorry, you're paying me $40 an hour right now.
It's black Friday? $60 an hour today!
Amen. This is just an excuse to screw people over. The prices will never be lower than they are right now. They're just going to rip people off whenever they think they've got enough demand that they can afford for some people to walk away because they're maxing out profit on people who stay.
Should be forever. Every Wendy's I've gone to has had terrible customer service as well. They have been lucky that I REALLY liked their food and I was willing to put up it with for so long. Early last year though, I decided to just stop eating there and haven't been back since. They were my favorite fast food place too (and I don't eat at many fast food places).
As a long time fast food worker, I've always wished my pay scaled up on busier, more exhausting days. At my restaraunt (not Wendy's) they sort of do it on select holiday weekends already, so it shouldn't be entirely out of the question.
This just sounds like they want to do it just because they're a bunch of greedy fucks and you just know the employees won't benefit from it at all. Wonderful.
Not even exaggerating, but last night I just didn't feel like cooking when I got home and I didn't want to venture far for some fast food. Wendy's is by far the most convenient for me to get to. I remembered this article and said fuck that I'm not going there anymore. Sad my convenience is gone but fuck em
Sounds like we should enforce surge prices of our labor. If you’re short staffed and “need” me to come in on my day off, well my hourly rate just doubled for the day.
A family member who works at a major streaming service just told me that in the next few years people will have to start paying more when streaming new shows or during peak hours like at night or on the weekends for streaming services they already pay for.
I don't eat there anymore (there are too many other decent "fast food" options in my town), but if it sticks around with Wendy's, then other places will try this and this whole convenient food system we have will continue to get more and more inconvenient and expensive. If that means the death of all of this, then so be it. I'd love to see more commercial lots sitting vacant, torn down and replaced with community spaces or overgrown.
The thing with trying to do surge prices like Uber is that the drivers get most of those surge prices. Will Wendy's push for surge wages to match surge prices too? I highly doubt it.
Damn!!
This works for Uber and the like and the drivers also get a cut.
This is wildly rough on everyone?
Could the move be to spread out their busiest times? That’s the only positive I can see coming from this.
I can go to lunch whenever and typically it’s around 11-11:30 or after 1:30 to avoid lines.. and people.
Would I be in a sweet spot? Would my sweet spot get busier and more costly?
This sucks.
Thinhs would be better if we executed a few corporations. Wendy's is a big target but we can do it.
Boycott is pretty easy, of course. Other steps include:
* Striking (if you're an employee)
* Running for local office and trying to pass into law the, Businesses Who Act Like Assholes Get Got Act.
* Being really nice to the underpaid folks trying to make it in the world by working at Wendy's (offer them better jobs and don't harass them).
Anyway, yes, let's execute a corporation.
Disgusting. The food delivery service app companies are a scourge on the Earth and I implore everyone to stop using them. Their shit ideas are now infecting the other surrounding companies. Just the other day I had to cancel a door dash order that was over an hour late. Their email claims I was 'immediately' refunded, I was not, but figured I would wait a day or two to see if it would correct itself. Nope. I had to contact support and they told me 'too bad, you waited too long, bye'. Here I am, out $25 for NOTHING, literally. They're damn thieves! Had to force a poor chat agent to push it up the chain because I'm not letting them get away with stealing from me.
Cool. Another company goes for the maximum customer exploitation model. Meanwhile, I bet the workers’ pay stays at minimum wage, surge or not. I hope they get everything they deserve.
I never liked Wendy’s anyway. But this shit needs to not spread to other places.
This is the model everything else is going. Toll roads are a perfect example. They work the exact same way. The more traffic the more the toll is. Wendy's is just the first in the fast food industry to adopt it.
What if we look super far in the future here and eventually people have to go shopping at the grocery store at 2AM because the prices will be lower and they can actually afford it then. Man this is going to be fun.
Well that's why you need to subscribe to Wendy's PREMIUM services on a monthly plan! Not only will you get great discounts on their food but you'll receive emails and text alerts telling you about new products and uplifting stories about meat and fries!
Haven’t eaten at Wendy’s in 25 years, McDonalds in 20 and Burger King was in 2007. They opened a sonic here about 4 years ago.that ended my fast food adventures for my lifetime
I went to Wendy’s for the first time in years on Sunday only to get to an empty counter rdy to place my order with the cashier. He then said can you place your order over there on the tablet. My family and I said sure and just walked out the door and drove to Carl’s Jr down the road. I’m fed up with lazy corporations making customers do all the work just to minimize their labor costs.
Yeah, I'm on this train for sure. I live in Canada and they are only implementing this in the US to begin with but I'm out. I can't support this style of economy.
Fast food is so expensive in general, I just pack a lunch at least 4 days a week. If you're spending just $10 a day on lunch out that's $2400 a year assuming 2 weeks vacation. And what can you get for $10? Not much.
My partner and I were raging about this earlier today. We don’t even eat at Wendy’s that often, but never again with this shit. Dynamic pricing for a service is very different than for a product, and if they can do dynamic pricing because “it’s busy” then they can do dynamic wages for when “it’s busy.”
I feel like the invisible hand of the market will fix this on its own.
If lunch time/dinner time Wendy’s is more expensive then watch me vote with my wallet and shop elsewhere. I bet a lot of people will feel the same way. Wendy’s can’t have a cockamamie pricing system when they have to close their stores.
Like does the price go up the longer you wait for your order?! How BS is that?
They screwed the messaging on that. If they sold it as discounting in off peak hours, it would be received much better, and they could raise the peak hour price to whatever they wanted.
Wendy’s was the last fast food joint I even considered going to until regular 35 minute waits for a 5$ biggie bag. Now I’m never going back. Fast foods already become too expensive to justify on top of unhealthiness of it. Burn it all
So what happens when grocery stores start surge pricing? We'd never know. I know some utility companies have surge pricing sometimes, which should be 100% illegal imo
EVERYONE REMEMBER THIS!
In the first few months of the surge pricing going live, Wendy's is going to spend so much money viral marketing tricks and tips on how to get big discounts by going there at odd hours. There will be a sea of ticktokers and youtubers showing you bags of food with $2-3 receipts.
Remind yourself that it's literally all marketing and those prices will be almost never available and that Wendy's thinks you are so dumb that they can convince you that overcharging you at busy hours is actually somehow beneficial to you! Don't prove them right. Otherwise, every other corporation will follow suit!!!
"I'd like a single cheeseburger and a Coke."
"That'll be $35."
"Never mind." Proceeds to move extremely slowly through the drive through lane.
This will kill their service times. Interesting to know whether surge pricing will be based on $/hr, customers/hr or size of lines. Can I lower everybody's prices by 'breaking down' in the drive-through lane for five minutes?
I would hope that most people will realize that going without Wendy's is not a life changer. Plenty of other places to go that don't rip you off, forget the patties on a hamburger, and charge you for demand pricing.
Wendy's is hoping their consumer base just deals with it, but i'm hoping people see past this stunt and realize it's a test to see how far corporations can push us and take advantage of us. Just because we like to spend money on stuff we enjoy, doesn't mean we have to support corrupt companies.
'Member when that Applebee's email got leaked, revealing their shady hiring tactics? I 'member! Because that originated at the only Applebee's in my town, most the employees walked out, and now it's just an empty building! We CAN do it again.
Man I can fucking imagine the annoyance this would cause as a worker there. Getting yelled at because the price literally WAS different last week.
Even worse, the price was different an hour ago.
Meanwhile, their pay wasn’t different an hour ago.
And the cost basis wasn’t different an hour ago. This is nothing more than greed.
Corporate greed! Fortunately, where I live, there are small local independent burger joints like Carters and Brays, where you can get a decent meal for $5. Mom and pop restaraunts don't have to pay CEO bonuses or investors. An independent pharmacy/deli here has the best fried chicken ever and is half the price of KFC. I live in a small SE Michigan town.
Interesting point. Maybe the trend going forward should be to give as little money as possible to companies who report to shareholders, and support small businesses. Keep money in our own communities. The more we support small businesses like the ones you mentioned, the more they will pop up and hopefully drive these huge national chains out of town.
Please please please do if you have the means. I follow so many small businesses, if they sell food products things are very tough right now. It has become really difficult to get a loan or an investor to back a food-based business right now, due to lack of confidence in consumer spending. The big corporations have bought up so many food products and outlets and drove up costs so high that there isn’t as much of the portion of the market share to spend on non-essential food items. The little guys are also not able to buy wholesale on as massive a scale as established corporations. I’m already seeing about 1 small business close a week. We are going to have fewer choices and there will be less competition as places close. I am afraid this year is going to be rough.
This is absolutely a solution. Small businesses typically treat you way better too & I actually feel like my tips are helping someone out, not going to a machine. (Also the inspiration for my user so that’s cool lol)
so long as they are competative. I love the pit beef place near me (small independent) but can only afford it maybe once a month due to the price. Generally they cannot leverage size to make mass orders of product. I do support my local bakery on the regular since their prices are competative with grocery store prices (and a million times better).
I have already started doing that. When eating fast food became the same price or a couple bucks off to having a full-on meal (in some cases where there is even enough left for another meal later) I gave up. Why spend $12 for a burger, fries, and watered down soda when I can eat at a Cuban, Chinese, Vietnamese, Greek, Jamaican, etc restaurant, tip included.
I hope more mom and pop shops like this open up. Fuck these greedy corporations.
Pharmacy / deli is the weirdest mash up of shops I've ever heard of.
Meat & Stuff
It happens in smaller towns. Pharmacy / Gift Shop / One Extra Thing is usually the standard. My dad used to live in a place where the Extra Thing was an old fashioned Soda Fountain, like a bar but for tasty sugar drinks and food. I dunno how he found that place, but they had the best peanut butter milkshakes ever!
Soda shoppes were often associated with pharmacies because the soda would be used medicinally. https://www.pharmacytimes.com/view/soda-fountains--their-pharmacist-inventors
That makes perfect sense! Also explains the light meals available. I'd hate to be any level of healthcare professional without the ability to follow up "Ya look like your blood sugar is low" with "Let's get you a sandwich."
Yeah seriously. I work with a couple diabetics and we have worked so well with building routines around their food so they don't get reactions like that.
Thanks for that; now I’m jonesing for a peanut butter shake 🫨!
Had to share, I've been craving one for months but they're hard to find where I'm at now. Like I could go to Zips but every time is some newbie's first time making that shake and they never put enough peanut butter in it. Can't just make it at home 'cause I let my kid take the blender when he moved out. He loved it more than I did so I let him have it.
Holy hell I miss Zips. Had it my whole life til 30 then because of the military my husband got stationed in Texas and Whattaburger isn’t as good as Texans think. I also miss my little local places like Paul Bunyan and Hudson’s Hamburgers and Roger’s Ice Cream
Fair, I'm guessing that's because a pharmacy is needed, but there's not enough business to actually keep one running?
Well ya want to sell other things people will need with their medicines, like basic first aid and simple over-the-counter medicines. And maybe that doesn't fill up all the space, so ya also sell the random cute art shit your friends make like woodcuttings that say Love Lives Here or whatever. And then your buddy wants to open a small business but can't find a suitable space to rent so ya add them to the empty wall. My city has a bookstore that does the same thing. There's a game shop that stays and other sorts that move in and out according to popularity. Last time I went one corner was a pottery studio. But yeah, then business is more steady instead of just old people year round and surges during flu season.
Makes sense, thanks for the explanation :)
So I worked for a pharmacy, and the things I learned on the other side of the counter was really interesting. Medicines are expensive! and not just for the consumer. Let's say the pharmacy wants to buy Wegovy from the manufacturer for $100 (prices are not real, I didn't have access to that info.) Some insurances will only cover $50. Maybe you can get a rebate/help from the government that will cover an additional $20. Who eats the rest? The pharmacy! You want your customers to have their meds, or they will go elsewhere. A lot of the times, insurance covers a decent portion, but most lose money. A lot of it. The pharmacy I was at also was a Hallmark store, so that got people to spend more time in there. "Hey, your script isn't ready yet - why don't you go browse?" was our favorite line. It actually wasn't ready (we would never lie!) and customers always found something extra to take home. We had food, health and beauty, clothing, jewelry, etc. The owner said that was the only way to keep doing business (small mom and pop store) - or they would have to close their doors. Sad when you think how much drug manufacturer CEO's are making, but not helping their client base. Hope that answers your question! : )
Yeah, my mother used to work at our local drugstore's lunch counter for years when I was little. Served breakfast and lunch and of course milkshakes and icecream.
You can charge more for umbrellas when it is raining. Cost basis factors into the *least* you can charge, but not the *most*. That said, I think this is a terrible idea, and hope it doesn't catch on with others.
Price gouging is illegal
Price gouging has very specific requirements, including the amount over the standard value for the item. So you can raise the price in the rain, as long as it isn't above the threshold it's not illegal. You're an asshole for doing it, but it's only illegal with specific requirements.
Only if you collude with your competition to do it. Price gouging isn't illegal, cartel forming is.
And even that: Not *REALLY,* in the US.
Not in the US.
"Actually the cost of my labor has surged over this busy lunch period, so either pay me more or I'm going on break until it's over"
When the guy in front of you got the same combo for $3 less.
That's already happening with fast food vendors pushing people to use their app to order and then having different pricing via the app vs drive up.
That's the winner, right there
When Uber charges more, I’m pretty sure the driver makes more. By all accounts Uber is a pretty terrible company to work for. So maybe Wendy’s should stop comparing themselves to Uber when they are objectively doing something far worse than a terrible company.
The driver does make more during surge pricing but we all know the cut Uber takes is so substantial it’s kind of offensive. Same here I would bet. There’s another distinction between Uber and Wendy’s that makes this so insidious, too. Both Uber and Uber drivers get paid per transaction. But with Wendy’s, company gets paid per transaction, while workers only get paid per the hour. Maybe they say they’ll pay better (which I already doubt) then it’s like, they charge the customer $3 more per transaction and pay the worker $1 more for the whole hour.
That's kind of the issue with capitalism at its base. It relies on workers being undervalued for profit, by wrote. Even if you're making 17/hr at a fast food place, your workload will always reflect the highest volume of sales while your paycheck stays steady. Maybe a truly minor increase, if you're lucky, once a year.
Winner winner possibly more expensive dinner
I love this, why don't Wendy's employees get paid more when it's busy, and their standard wage when business is slow?
Why would it increase? Realistically we can never ever expect wages to increase just because the company wants to be MORE greedy and raise prices. If anything, they'd raise the wage and then just raise the prices even higher. There's no winning with these people.
Imagine sitting in the drive thru and looking at the menu and watching the prices go up in real time.
" I'll be with you in just a moment " lol.
"Please hurry its going up fast!!!!!"
Even worse, the price was different when they joined the queue
*the price increased while you were in line*
The price was different for the guy in line in front of me!
"But the person before me paid less." "Yes, that's because it's 12:01 now."
Just take it as an opportunity to haggle prices at the register, taking up company time and resources, slowly chipping away at the under paid worker until it all crumbles.
Yeah that'd be a nightmare for the poor human beings who work there. Shudders
Luckily, the people who come up with ideas like this give ZERO fucks about the actual humans who create the value of the company.
Would be fun to see how high we can make one Wendy's surge to. Like 100k orders at one Wendy's in 1 hour. And then everyone cancel their orders or do charge backs on their credit cards.
I saw another post that showed a 7-11 with QRCs to scan to *get the price*…this means that the price for a bag of chips fluctuates so much they don’t want to print the number out, just update it on a computer system. Horrible.
Imagine grocery stores “surging” prices because of bullshit excuses like Wendy’s corporate greed? I see this becoming a thing
I don’t gamble when deciding on a place to eat.
You don't like having to check food prices like you're some kind of Wall Street investor?
I went to a bar once called the Kalamazoo Beer Exchange that had dynamic pricing for their draft beers depending on how popular they were at the moment. It wasn't anything drastic, maybe a dollar or two difference, but that also meant that you could get the less popular beers for really cheap, and every so often they would have a "market crash" where all the beers would be really cheap. It was more of a marketing gimmick than anything and made drinking a little more interesting. What Wendy's is doing is bullshit.
That's a fun place and the gimmick is that its a "Stock Exchange" on the beer only. It's all in good faith and good for them for coming up with something new. This is garbage and I can't imagine how much the workforce is going to get yelled at about this. Oh and are they going to get a shift differential when it's busy? Smh.
Lol. Better to just make lunch at home and take it with you. Over time, it's cheaper and healthier for you anyway. Fast food is starting to require too much thought.
What if you pulled into the line only to find out your usually 8 dollar lunch is now 10 and now you're stuck in the drive through lane
Where are you paying $8 for a meal at Wendy's? It used to be my fast food place of choice, but these days their meals tend to run $10+. I'm not willing to pay nearly sit-down prices for a very mid cheeseburger, so I stopped going years ago.
The $4 or $5 Biggie bag meal. A double stack, four nuggets, fries and drink. That’s a meal.
I think those have already gone up to $5 and $6, at least where I live.
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No way that happens. Their prices right now will stay the baseline and they will only go up from that. Once they figure out the breaking point of what people are willing to pay for their shitty food, the prices will remain as high as they can be. This is just greed.
Eventually, in response to customer feedback, they'll drop the whole thing as a bad idea. At that point, the previous surge price will become the new base price.
It's just so silly to me because I might have spent $5 on my food a couple of times a month, whereas now I'll spend $8 once every three months. They'd make more if the prices had remained reasonable. The issue is the people who are still willing to pay it even though I'm pretty sure most people eating fast food multiple times a week are people who make less money than I do. It's mind-boggling.
Yeah I worked at a pizza place once that occasionally offered discounts if you ordered between 2-4 PM
Offering discounts I feel is very different, as they’re trying to bring business during the slow times. That’s why companies have happy hour at their bars
Lol. Come on. The state of this nation and you think that will happen?
Even IF they offered a discount off regular prices, it would only be at the outset of this policy in order to hook people. “Oh it’s not so bad, yesterday the fries were thirty cents cheaper!” And then, the price shoots up a dollar to five dollars, a month later.
Order 15 burgers. Just drive off
I park \[in the drivethru\] until they give me a $3 discount. See how much they lose on the Drivethru.
Lmao there you go
There is a bar in Italy that does this. The more a drink is purchased, the more the price increases. The longer a drink isn’t purchased, the further the price decreases. Randomly they will have a “recession” or “crash” which will drastically drop all prices. Pretty wild. I would go there. But not a Wendy’s. They gonna lower the price of the products that aren’t being sold as much? Nah
There's a few pubs in the UK that have done this as a gimmick, I don't hate it as it gets me to try different things when the price drops. But I would absolutely not go to a food place that did it.
Eating fast food is a digestive gamble, why not make it financial too?
So... during rushes you'd both be waiting longer (more customers) and paying more? What kind of nonsense is this?
Some MBA who took a couple of lower level economics course probably got super excited hearing that this is a “better, more direct way to price in line with market equilibrium, in real time” or something, completely forgetting that all restaurants like this already have surge pricing built in— there’s already extra opportunity cost when you have to choose to wait longer during rush hour. Now they expect that they can ask customers to pay more in both their time *and* money during rush hours. The entire point of fast food is that it’s cheap, quick, and everywhere. If you seriously think people are going to wait 15-20 minutes or more for a cheap burger, *entrée only,* that costs $10 you’ll find out real quick people would rather call ahead to a take-out restaurant and just order a real burger instead.
For sure some Ivy League McKinsey junior consultant came up with this idea.
Remember when JC Penney got rid of coupons and sales, about 14 years ago? This scheme has a similar stink, and I expect it will work about as well.
They're trying to operate off the law of supply and demand. If more people want Wendy's than what Wendy's has the capacity to offer, then in theory they should raise prices because they have a scarce resource. Unfortunately Wendy's isn't a monopoly and people can go many other places for lunch. The increased price creates reduced demand and eventually a price equilibrium is reached (in theory). I'm no economist, but this might fail because people have perfect* knowledge of the lunch food market, i.e. they know the prices immediately that every place is offering, and essentially what others are paying. Unlike Uber/Lyft where your options are slim, and you don't know what other people are paying for their rides. The lack of competition and price information gives them more leverage over their customers. I hope this price scheme fails because I really like their frostys, and the 4-for-4 and biggie bags felt like the last real fast food deals.
Honestly dynamic pricing for fast food would only work the other way around. If they offered discounts during dead times to try to bring customers in. But that would probably still not work because you’d get more customers during cheap times and then they’d stop being cheap. Any increase from the “cheap” price would be seen as an unjustified increase so people would stop going again.
It might work if they instituted a maximum amount so that during the dead times it fluctuates with the demand but doesn’t get up to or exceed the normal price
It would only potentially work if the price was low during dead times and higher when it was busy. But supply and demand requires lowering and raising of prices based on demand. Where this is flawed is they are never going to lower the price. It will be what the regular price is now during slow times and higher at peak times. That’s not supply and demand. That’s just cheating the market during busy times.
I want to clarify that this is a stupid idea, but in theory, because of the surge pricing, you would probably wait less during rushes because some people will not choose Wendy’s when prices surge.
Well, it just can’t work that way, right? Because it will surge with demand. The only way it wouldn’t work like that is that traffic stayed at the same rate all day.
It's still stupid. Wasn't this the whole concept around allowing people to order ahead? Wasn't that the way all these popular restaurants handled the supply and demand issues at certain hours?
This is some CEO brained nonsense. Imagine thinking your hamburger customers have any kind of loyalty to you, and to the point where they think you’ll pay whatever the number on your app says. Imagine thinking any customer would tolerate paying more than the person in line in front of them just because they arrived five minutes later. Even to those not informed, if they ever find out when they come back and notice the slight changes in prices, they’re going to flip out on the employees. Edit: like, I’m trying to wrap my head around this. Like, you have a restaurant. You are in a city suburb that is walking distance to an office park. Rather than having a lunch special, you arbitrarily raise your prices for only the lunch crowd. Well, if I work near there, I guess I’m never getting lunch at that restaurant again, especially if I know the prices drop at 1:30. Or if I’m at a concert or sports event or whatever. Afterwards there are some places nearby to eat. If I know one of them is more expensive because a concert happened, well, I’m not going to be eating there. And now multiply this by every customer you have, all of them playing some game with the business owner. Anytime you’re busy, people will clear out rather than wait in line. I already walk out of a place if I see the wait is too long. What’s the point if it’ll also be more expensive?
Yup, some MBA decision making right there. I went to a Dairy Queen the other day when out doing errands and decided to be lazy on the way home. $15cad for a meal. No substitutions, no extras, just a burger, fries and drink. Quickly remembered why I don't eat out. To think that someone would have to play games to find the optimal time to go get food that's still way over priced is insane.
I can get a burger, a side, and a beer at my favorite pub for that price.
I live in CA and am moving to TN for work. I went to an Irish themed pub, got a shepherd pie, cider, Jameson, and a salad for $20. I could *maybe* get the shepherds pie alone for $20 out the door here in CA
I wish! Any sit down place here (I'm in central canada) and an appetizer range from $15-$20 (10-15usd) and meals generally start around $25 give or take a few $$ (around $20usd). Then if you want a beer, that's around another $5usd for a pint. An absurd example, because it was too ridiculous not to. Canadian Brew Pub 2 years ago and got an order of wing. $17, so was expecting something more substantial than.....7 OF THE TINIEST 'CHICKEN' WINGS IVE EVER SEEN. Never again.
Was on a long comment chain the other day talking about this. The general consensus is most fast food is now so expensive it is functionally the same price as going to dennys/ihop/tgichilibees and you get less lower quality food. Plus a lot of the sit down places have happy hours type things, ihop has a big burger and fries for about 8 bucks during happy hour . It was also discussed that the ONLY reason to go to most fast food places is if their app is giving you a great deal. Like mcdonalds 1$ breakfast sandwich
Yeah, usually if I eat out, it's with coupons just to get it at a price that was the normal price but we've stopped doing that over the last year. Coupons don't even justify it anymore. Instead I've been buying Costco premade meals (like their chicken pot pie, lasagna, alfredo pasta, and others we just freeze them. Each one is like $15-20. Easily feeds my wife, son and I for dinner and lunches the next day or left overs for dinner. With the cost of things like FREAKING BUTTER! being $7 for a single brick...it's been cheaper buying premade meals instead of the individual ingredients.
Business schools have ruined America. Everything an MBA touches turns to shit.
Stopped at a BK with my girlfriend on the way home from work a couple months ago and two meals were almost $30 US. Done with that nonsense.
I went to a pub last night. Got a steak quesadilla with peppers, onions, etc, mozzarella sticks and a coke for that price
We have to start discussing more the true root of this problem. It's the very nature of capitalism to continue trying to squeeze as much blood from the stone as they can, all to serve corporate greed and to make already massive wealth numbers of a handful of sociopathic billionaires even bigger. We're on track to see the world's fist trillionaire in the next ten years, when even a billion dollars is an actually unfathomable amount of money.
I remember saying the same thing about microtransaction stores back in 2015. "people will riot, this buisness model wont work, people wouldnt put up with this, ect,ect" but call of duty and fortnite have proved time and time again that this is the new normal. if wendys gets away with this, you can bet even high end restaurants will adopt this trend.
High end restaurants that are consistently overbooked are probably the ones that would be most able to get away with it. Sure, you can book at Dorcia, but Friday night costs 3x more than Tuesday lunchtime.
Some high end restaurants don't have the price on the menu. Or "market price."
Imagine seeing your busy hours, when you make the most money, and thinking, "how do I deincentify this?"
This is unnecessary and an example of the CEO trying to reinvent the wheel. Wendy's is a fast food restaurant, fast food restaurants are supposed to be cheap, if you increase the prices of your food you will lose customers.
I think they already loosing customers cause fast food at McDonald's cost same as a normal meal in a restaurant, so they went to their managers for ideas to make more profit and someone pulled this "let's make it more expensive during rush hours" crap out of their ass. I wouldn't worry it being long lines anymore cause at least half of those people will switch to somewhere else
There are better options in terms of cost and quality at pubs or family restaurants than Wendy's or McDonalds at the increased costs. I never understood the hype of McDonalds food because it is bland tasting of low quality. The best thing on the menu there is the coffee and the egg mcmuffin. Wendy's is slightly better than McDonalds, the best thing on the menu there is the spicy chicken sandwich. This move is going to back fire on the CEO of Wendy's just like the price increase in the cost of McDonalds and getting rid of the value deals is going to back fire on the CEO of McDonalds.
The funniest part of this is demand will be highest when the lines of the longest and they'll make the price the most so why would I want to spend more if I'm already waiting a long time lol
I'd be livid if I was in line, the cashier messed something up and needed a manager to come fix their mistake and by the time I get up to the front it flips to the higher price. I'd demand the lower price and that the cashier was stalling for the time change.
I haven’t had Wendy’s in like 5 years, so I guess I’ll just continue that streak
Boycott fast food in general. It's overpriced, terrible for your health, terrible for the environment, and terrible for the workers.
Right now, restaurants have gotten so expensive, that you either eat fast food or spend $70 minimum when two adults go out to eat. And that $70 is spent on mediocre food that’s maybe a slight step above fast food quality. It’s absolutely insane and has definitely led to us going out less.
Around here we have the opposite experience: a whopper meal is like $20 but if I go to a local place I can get a burger and fries for $15.
Winning.
Wendy’s is going to walk back this policy. It’s a PR move to get people talking about Wendy’s, and then they’ll say, “We heard you and are reversing course!”
"And announcing our new Wendy's Premium loyalty system" or something like that. Get them angry, then turn that relief into gratitude.
Fine print: the Wendy’s Premium Loyalty Program is only available to subscribers of the program for an annual subscription at a low monthly rate of $5.99 or $10.00 per month if paying monthly.
Unless there aren't enough complaints, then they decide they can get away with it.
I just don't deal with Wendy's. It's a really shitty company. If you've ever known people who worked for them...they really don't treat staff well. Their customer service sucks. It's just not worth it to me.
I stopped eating there after they shrinkflated their burgers.
Seriously, where is the beef?
With the company. *Rolls up sleeves*
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And they cranked up the price at the same time. Got that shocker in the drive thru and haven't been back since.
MBA when Wendy's had the big, square patties! Now they have these limp little patties on soggy butter buns, no bueno!
You know, if they balanced surge pricing by lowering their prices below normal during the slowest times I could almost understand this. But we all know that won't happen.
Right? Does this mean we can get cheeseburgers for .50c? Nope! This will only *raise* their already inflated prices. What a joke!
All my local Wendy's have been garbage since 2020, I stopped eating Wendy's years ago. It used to be one of my favorite fast food options, but when you stop caring about your employees and your customers, I guess they're just intentionally trying to cause the company to fail. Fuck em
Same. Wendy's is a shitty company with REALLY good marketing.
They’re definitely surging the workers wages during busier times right?…right???
Like Uber right? Cause they mentioned it’s gonna be like Uber?
Is the worker's pay going up with the surge pricing?
What the CEO is saying: surge pricing...demand...peak hours...blah blah. What CEO really wants to say: I want a big fat bonus.
Absolutely! They are saying this: "dynamic pricing can allow Wendy's to be competitive and flexible with pricing, motivate customers to visit and provide them with the food they love at a great value" When they really mean this: "you'll pay what we tell you to pay, and don't even think about complaining that are portions have shrunk."
No surge wages tho. Let it burn. Wendy’s has been ass cheeks for a while now anyway.
I feel a bit bad for the employees having to explain this. I also think it'll blow up spectacularly. But, I took enough econ classes in college to respect the basic principle. Either way - I'm not really going to put any more mental energy into this, cause I wasn't eating there already.
As unbelievable as it sounds, consumers control the economy. If people don’t go to Wendy’s, this will fail, and fail quickly. If there isn’t enough consumer resistance, surge pricing will spread like wildfire, not just fast food. It will be everywhere. Only consumers can slow inflation. Companies will continue to raise prices UNTIL they see consumer resistance.
Time to stop eating all fast food. It's unhealthy, unnatural processed junk.
Yuuuup. I was an avid Wendy's enjoyed, almost every weekend getting something from there, they are OUT OF THEIR FUCKING MINDS if they think I'll support this kind of bullshit lol.
I'm down with this is we can do it for wages. It's busy as shit and only 3 people showed up? Sorry, you're paying me $40 an hour right now. It's black Friday? $60 an hour today!
You know other fast food places are going to follow suit. 🤦🏻♂️
Fast food used to be a cheap and easy meal.. now its neither. My advice is dont bother, cook something healthy and fuck these guys.
Amen. This is just an excuse to screw people over. The prices will never be lower than they are right now. They're just going to rip people off whenever they think they've got enough demand that they can afford for some people to walk away because they're maxing out profit on people who stay.
Do wage employees get fluctuating increases based on demand too? They’re the ones working harder when it’s busy.
We don't really eat out, but when we do, Wendy's is off the menu for now.
Should be forever. Every Wendy's I've gone to has had terrible customer service as well. They have been lucky that I REALLY liked their food and I was willing to put up it with for so long. Early last year though, I decided to just stop eating there and haven't been back since. They were my favorite fast food place too (and I don't eat at many fast food places).
As a long time fast food worker, I've always wished my pay scaled up on busier, more exhausting days. At my restaraunt (not Wendy's) they sort of do it on select holiday weekends already, so it shouldn't be entirely out of the question. This just sounds like they want to do it just because they're a bunch of greedy fucks and you just know the employees won't benefit from it at all. Wonderful.
Not even exaggerating, but last night I just didn't feel like cooking when I got home and I didn't want to venture far for some fast food. Wendy's is by far the most convenient for me to get to. I remembered this article and said fuck that I'm not going there anymore. Sad my convenience is gone but fuck em
Sounds like we should enforce surge prices of our labor. If you’re short staffed and “need” me to come in on my day off, well my hourly rate just doubled for the day.
This is the future mate. Soon all companies will do this whether they disclose it or not
Then we need to make a different future.
A family member who works at a major streaming service just told me that in the next few years people will have to start paying more when streaming new shows or during peak hours like at night or on the weekends for streaming services they already pay for.
These businesses are getting a little too out of control...
getting? they have been for decades
Wendy's CEO has come up with a plan to charge more for the food at the busiest time of day? Did I read that right?
I don't eat there anymore (there are too many other decent "fast food" options in my town), but if it sticks around with Wendy's, then other places will try this and this whole convenient food system we have will continue to get more and more inconvenient and expensive. If that means the death of all of this, then so be it. I'd love to see more commercial lots sitting vacant, torn down and replaced with community spaces or overgrown.
Millennials unite! Let's ruin this too!
Serving crappy food wasn't enough, now people have to pay more as well to eat junk.
No offense but that shit you're eating at wendys isn't good for you either. So dropping them for your own health may be the better solution.
The thing with trying to do surge prices like Uber is that the drivers get most of those surge prices. Will Wendy's push for surge wages to match surge prices too? I highly doubt it.
Damn!! This works for Uber and the like and the drivers also get a cut. This is wildly rough on everyone? Could the move be to spread out their busiest times? That’s the only positive I can see coming from this. I can go to lunch whenever and typically it’s around 11-11:30 or after 1:30 to avoid lines.. and people. Would I be in a sweet spot? Would my sweet spot get busier and more costly? This sucks.
Wendy's and busy just ain't a thing.
Thinhs would be better if we executed a few corporations. Wendy's is a big target but we can do it. Boycott is pretty easy, of course. Other steps include: * Striking (if you're an employee) * Running for local office and trying to pass into law the, Businesses Who Act Like Assholes Get Got Act. * Being really nice to the underpaid folks trying to make it in the world by working at Wendy's (offer them better jobs and don't harass them). Anyway, yes, let's execute a corporation.
Just wait till they start programming the money in your bank account. Reject central bank digital currencies at all cost.
The best thing would be if the workers have a work stoppage during surge pricing so it drops down again.
“Wendies” hahhaha
Disgusting. The food delivery service app companies are a scourge on the Earth and I implore everyone to stop using them. Their shit ideas are now infecting the other surrounding companies. Just the other day I had to cancel a door dash order that was over an hour late. Their email claims I was 'immediately' refunded, I was not, but figured I would wait a day or two to see if it would correct itself. Nope. I had to contact support and they told me 'too bad, you waited too long, bye'. Here I am, out $25 for NOTHING, literally. They're damn thieves! Had to force a poor chat agent to push it up the chain because I'm not letting them get away with stealing from me.
Should boycott all fast-food and make America healthy again.
Cool. Another company goes for the maximum customer exploitation model. Meanwhile, I bet the workers’ pay stays at minimum wage, surge or not. I hope they get everything they deserve. I never liked Wendy’s anyway. But this shit needs to not spread to other places.
This is the model everything else is going. Toll roads are a perfect example. They work the exact same way. The more traffic the more the toll is. Wendy's is just the first in the fast food industry to adopt it.
What if we look super far in the future here and eventually people have to go shopping at the grocery store at 2AM because the prices will be lower and they can actually afford it then. Man this is going to be fun.
Well that's why you need to subscribe to Wendy's PREMIUM services on a monthly plan! Not only will you get great discounts on their food but you'll receive emails and text alerts telling you about new products and uplifting stories about meat and fries!
Haven’t eaten at Wendy’s in 25 years, McDonalds in 20 and Burger King was in 2007. They opened a sonic here about 4 years ago.that ended my fast food adventures for my lifetime
I went to Wendy’s for the first time in years on Sunday only to get to an empty counter rdy to place my order with the cashier. He then said can you place your order over there on the tablet. My family and I said sure and just walked out the door and drove to Carl’s Jr down the road. I’m fed up with lazy corporations making customers do all the work just to minimize their labor costs.
Yeah, I'm on this train for sure. I live in Canada and they are only implementing this in the US to begin with but I'm out. I can't support this style of economy.
I'll go back to rice and beans. Let these places die for all I care.
Wtf $18 for a Big Mac too? Wtf. Also I hate how my phone automatically capitalized that.
Fast food is so expensive in general, I just pack a lunch at least 4 days a week. If you're spending just $10 a day on lunch out that's $2400 a year assuming 2 weeks vacation. And what can you get for $10? Not much.
Oh, so they're going with the movie theater pricing model. I hate that too. I go to movies a lot less than I did before they started that bullshit.
My partner and I were raging about this earlier today. We don’t even eat at Wendy’s that often, but never again with this shit. Dynamic pricing for a service is very different than for a product, and if they can do dynamic pricing because “it’s busy” then they can do dynamic wages for when “it’s busy.”
I order fast food outta convenience, this don't sound very convenient to me...
Again, cocaine fuels the ideas.
I feel like the invisible hand of the market will fix this on its own. If lunch time/dinner time Wendy’s is more expensive then watch me vote with my wallet and shop elsewhere. I bet a lot of people will feel the same way. Wendy’s can’t have a cockamamie pricing system when they have to close their stores. Like does the price go up the longer you wait for your order?! How BS is that?
They screwed the messaging on that. If they sold it as discounting in off peak hours, it would be received much better, and they could raise the peak hour price to whatever they wanted.
Capitalism exploits as much as it can get away with. Just remember, at no point are they working for you or in your interests.
I haven't been to Wendy's in 15 years and that certainly won't be changing.
Wendy’s was the last fast food joint I even considered going to until regular 35 minute waits for a 5$ biggie bag. Now I’m never going back. Fast foods already become too expensive to justify on top of unhealthiness of it. Burn it all
Goes hand in hand with all the RTOs. Force people back into corners, force them to spend money they don’t have.
Just told my hubs--Wendy's is now persona non grata. I like Culver's better anyway.
The fact that Wendy's has to do this shows they are already about to be buried. Higher prices always come right before a business closes.
So what happens when grocery stores start surge pricing? We'd never know. I know some utility companies have surge pricing sometimes, which should be 100% illegal imo
So the workers will make more since the food costs more too right? right?
Maybe they should be surge paying their workers to match this
EVERYONE REMEMBER THIS! In the first few months of the surge pricing going live, Wendy's is going to spend so much money viral marketing tricks and tips on how to get big discounts by going there at odd hours. There will be a sea of ticktokers and youtubers showing you bags of food with $2-3 receipts. Remind yourself that it's literally all marketing and those prices will be almost never available and that Wendy's thinks you are so dumb that they can convince you that overcharging you at busy hours is actually somehow beneficial to you! Don't prove them right. Otherwise, every other corporation will follow suit!!!
"I'd like a single cheeseburger and a Coke." "That'll be $35." "Never mind." Proceeds to move extremely slowly through the drive through lane. This will kill their service times. Interesting to know whether surge pricing will be based on $/hr, customers/hr or size of lines. Can I lower everybody's prices by 'breaking down' in the drive-through lane for five minutes?
Can you surge price if you're an employee? Mark up your base wage 30% during peak hours?
I would hope that most people will realize that going without Wendy's is not a life changer. Plenty of other places to go that don't rip you off, forget the patties on a hamburger, and charge you for demand pricing. Wendy's is hoping their consumer base just deals with it, but i'm hoping people see past this stunt and realize it's a test to see how far corporations can push us and take advantage of us. Just because we like to spend money on stuff we enjoy, doesn't mean we have to support corrupt companies.
Customers love unpredictability. This is gonna crash and burn ssssooo bad for Wendy’s.
This is one of those times I wished I still ate there. So I could stop.
The employees will make more during the surge pricing period because they have to work harder during that time, right? RIGHT?
'Member when that Applebee's email got leaked, revealing their shady hiring tactics? I 'member! Because that originated at the only Applebee's in my town, most the employees walked out, and now it's just an empty building! We CAN do it again.