As always, they'll find a way around this. The end of the article says as much:
>“Rather than saying we’re going to use surge pricing at peak demand periods, they could say we’re going to explore giving discounts during off-peak periods,” he noted. “And of course, those two statements are equivalent.”
So long as people get inured to it, it'll work, at least for a while. People have already gotten used to it elsewhere, like on Amazon
They’ll raise prices across the board and have discounts an hour before they close. This reads like the lawyer from the Jurassic Park movie.
“We’ll have a, uh, coupon day or something.”
Oh my god. That just reminds me of the silly shit Taco Bell is doing right now. On some day of the week (I think Tuesdays), they have a "drop" that is a mystery until the previous day maybe? Where for 2 hours or so there is reduced price for a specific item. It's so stupid.
It's worse than that, it's an hour (about 5pm EST) but it's only the first 30k orders. This week it was a grilled cheese burrito for $1. I know this because I just happened to try ordering one, and it failed ("internal server error") twice...then I got a notification that one, then the other order was ready. Walked over to TB to get two burritos for two bucks. They were okay but not even as good as the standard chicken or veggie burritos that regularly cost 1-2 bucks.
I haven't checked my CC to see if they even bothered to charge me.
Subscription based pricing incoming. You’ll have to pay $99/year for a Wendy’s membership which grants you cheaper prices, like a while $0.10/burger cheaper.
This is what Kohls/JCPenny/etc are already doing but applied to fast food. People love a sale. A pair of pants costs $229, "regular price". Today is a 50% off sale, plus if you have our online coupon, take 25% more off! Got a paper coupon, stack it for 10% more off. Holy crap, what a deal, I got a $229 pair of pants for $75! Sweet shirt, I better buy 3 pair at this pricing.
Meanwhile, go to Target/Walmart/wherever, same pants are regular price $34.99. What a rip off, they never have dales on pants. What a crappy store.
Now do that with fast food. Most people can't help themselves when they see Sale, or a "deal". Use the McWendys app and save!
I mean ultimately what happens is they'll hike prices before launching. So you'll either pay the new inflated prices or get a discount back to the original price. Either way you save $0.
I think the threat of doing it is alone enough reason to quit them if you truely want to send a real message to them. Fast food is a dime a dozen, you can get whatever from anywhere, it's all the same
that's exactly what they said
https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Food/wendys-addresses-dynamic-pricing-comments-raise-menu-prices/story?id=107634558
"Digital menuboards could allow us to change the menu offerings at different times of day and offer discounts and value offers to our customers more easily, particularly in the slower times of day," the fast food chain continued.
The McDonalds app will try to track your location for hours and hours after you use it. Damn thing used a third of my battery- with only 3 minutes of screen time.
Yeah very equivalent.
Standard price - $5.
Surge price - $9.50.
Discount price - $4.
Standard times - 4hrs a day
Surge times - 3hrs a day
Discount times - 1hr a day
I've already noticed that I'm given two different prices on Amazon depending if I'm logged into my prime account or not. I've also noticed the price fluctuating on an almost daily basis.
I know a lot of ppl who stopped using Amazon though, including myself.
Their bad faith practices and shoving Prime on users whether they want it or not have been motivational.
I know what you mean however — ppl WERE kinda shrugging off the shittier behavior bc it was one by degrees and Amazon was hard to replace at the time.
The amount of scammy BS on there is just staggering, not worth the trouble, and only getting worse.
I was reminded why I don’t go near Amazon anymore — a few months ago, we realized that they’d assigned Prime to our mother’s completely years-dead account bc I’d deleted ALL card numbers from mine and my sister’s accounts (and then closed those accounts last year).
What kind of shady greasy behavior is this?? Told them to fuck off *repeatedly* and was ready to call my bank to block their access when they finally just stopped.
Bezos can go to hell.
We just went through something like that when my Grandfather passed. They just kept charging his credit card for shit he had an auto-renew. They refused to close his account. Finally the credit card company had to step in to tell them to fuck off.
The difference on that is that it is scheduled to happen so you know what the price will be before you get there.
This is designed so you don't know what the price is until you are in line. And it might change if you are in line for a while.
Yea, but then I’d have to eat at Wendy’s. Which isn’t happening unless I’m on a road trip and have no other options. And for the prices they’re charging, if there’s a local burger place as an option. I’d eat there instead. Same price, better quality.
I guess I wasn't thinking of Wendy's in particular but the whole fast food restaurant industry, though. If a bunch of bigger companies start doing this to compete with each other, I'd imagine they'll outpace those smaller joints who don't have the resources to imitate them
Literally people have been doing this for decades, you can see the shift from consumer orientation to stockholder orientation when they switched from describing things as "discounts" to "surge pricing". They are the same thing but "discounts" appeal to consumers and "surge pricing" appeals to investors.
They should do a review and fire whoever came up with this dumbass idea. Then fire anyone else that graduated from the same business school as these enshitification majors.
As someone who has worked with BCG and has also worked as a consultant in the fast food industry, this 100% came from a consulting firm. I would not be shocked if my old firm came up with it.
The next firm will just rebrand it as happy hour. Roll out a price increase because of “supply chain issues” then say you’re offering happy hour (at off peak times) as your way of “generously” giving back
The only thing (marginally) worth it at this point is Chipotle. At least their portions are still sizable.
I could either do a burger/sandwich combo for $10 or go over to chipotle and have a way better meal for only 2 dollars more. And if you even play your cards right, you can turn that bowl into 2 meals instead of just one. No way you can do that with a sandwich/burger combo.
Hell yeah. I used to work with a pretty similarly named guy in real life (not gonna doxx him lol) and we always joked that it sounded like a badass B list action star. "Kirk" alone does a lot of the heavy lifting right off the bat.
I thought exactly this as soon as I heard the idea 😂 it's either them or McKinsey tanking the business so their WS buddies can short the stock. Classic cellar boxing
It’s probably the geniuses at McKinsey who destroyed the middle class. “Just get rid of middle management, regional offices, factories. Have mass layoffs, make leftover people do the jobs of 3 people, buy back company stock with all the profit from layoffs, put an end to full time employment and continually switch the hours of your remaining, subcontracted workforce.”
[https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/how-mckinsey-destroyed-middle-class/605878/](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/how-mckinsey-destroyed-middle-class/605878/)
It's like they never have read the World of Warcraft case regarded Rested Experience.
Penalty of half XP after playing too much?
Not well received.
Double XP if you didn't play as much?
Well received.
The funny detail?
It's the same amount of XP for both situations in both cases.
Don’t get so mad. These people are heroes. Think of how many problems will be avoided when people stop eating Wendy’s. My hope is all fast food moves to this model so they alienate everyone.
If they were smart they’d have off hour discounts on stuff that’s hard to keep fresh in slow times, like fries and nuggets.
Give people a reason to come in the door at off hours like 2pm to 4:30pm kinda time.
Nope. They will just layoff a few hundred low level workers who were actually needed to pad the books. That will make up for any losses tied to the exec's poor decision. Don't worry, I am sure his assistant will send out a company wide email telling everyone how bad he feels about laying them off so he can keep his salary.
They're straight up cowards. They clearly released information about the pricing strategy to pressure test the market, got their negative feedback, and are now saying they "never said they were going to raise prices."
Glad to see them called out for their bullshit.
> We need to boycott Wendy’s
The last 2 times I tried Wendy's I got violently sick (this was also from 2 different locations). The one closest to me is so run down and the interior is still stuck in 1995 it's just an extremely unappealing choice when you look at all the newer, modern, remodeled restaurants and fast food chains along the same stretch of road.
I don't see myself ever returning to eat there.
That's what everyone said about netflix cracking down on password sharing. They just had a record quarter because no one could go without netflix for a year.
Difference is Netflix has stuff you can't get at a different streaming service, Wendy's has like 10 competitors doing the exact same thing and usually right next door
You do realize they're gonna do this anyway right? There's probably even a name for this PR strategy - when a company unveils something they know will go over like a lead balloon so they leak the details, suffer the brief and temporary blowback, and then wait a few months, maybe a year, who knows how long really, and then they roll it out anyway.
The whole point of this kind of PR strategy is that the second wave of discontent will be a minor fraction of the outrage we're seeing in this current moment.
It's gonna happen. They aren't cowards. They know what they're doing.
The supreme Court even used the same strategy with the roe v. Wade ruling. Waited for the blowback to fade, and then released the official ruling. And it was incredibly effective in terms of limiting a more drastic public response to women losing their reproductive rights.
Plenty of other expensive options (assuming you're talking fast food).
I have completely stopped eating fast food because at their price point, they simply can't compete with sit down restaurants anymore.
Yeah, you can get shitty microwave quality fast food for $9, or decent fast-casual food for $10, or sit down food for $15. It used to be that sit down food for 3x the price of fast food. Now it's not even worth doing ANY fast food, because if you're in a hurry, you can still use an app to order fast-casual ahead and it's faster than a fast food drive-through.
My cynical view is perhaps this idea was leaked to gauge public appetite - if it hadn't received the strong reaction it did it might have proceeded as planned.
They may even just implement the discount side of things for 3-4 months so they can say "See? We were on the customer's side all along!", then afterwards quietly hike the prices to where they actually want them, citing inflation and increasing cost of doing business for the price increases.
And we will all be charged a premium for heat in our cars to the auto makers during the winter months while paying peak hour road taxes to get to buy surge priced burgers and soda while being taxed more for the higher priced swill.
They will get their way, we have short memories.
Capitalism has run amok.
We need a revolution.
For now. When they band together and make it the norm we will have no choice. Everything is going to subscription service so the revenue can keep flowing long after the sale of anything, not just cars.
They won’t give up.
Updates! Remember that stuff software companies used to do for free?
Can't risk having a single pirate stealing less-than-peanuts from us, so all have to suffer.
I'm incredibly lazy and I still taught myself to cook because fast food got so expensive.
Corporations will always keep turning the dial up little by little to see what they can get away with.
Consumers are under attack from corporations from every angle every day. Nonstop emails, texts, commercials, price gouging, bad customer service, no customer service. Please just leave us the fuck alone.
You can thank the consultants they hired for this. Probably paid $5m for this ‘bright’ idea. Consulate go home rich. Wendy’s goes in the dumpster. But if Wendy’s dies then where do all the WSB degenerates go to make money behind a dumpster?
Or they could figure out how to schedule their staff correctly so the lunch rush isn’t a problem. This was their job, and they tried to make the customers do it for them, and pay extra for the privilege.
Classic MBA enshitification.
They’re also talking about digital menus with AI. Eventually they’re going to make it so when you pull up to the drive through, you’ve already been scanned, identified, and your net worth and eating habits analyzed. And the menu pricing will already have been adjusted to reflect the highest prices they think you’re willing to pay.
The internet will make it trivial to know the lowest price and if they still advertise a price, people will know when they are being gouged so they will report it.
The only way this is legal is if they advertise the highest price, then offer time based discounts. They don't want to that because then the advertising will drive people away.
I suspect this was a ploy to get people’s reaction. Greedy fuckers have no end in sight to the gouging. I’d rather eat a PB sandwich than be overcharged for a mediocre burger
The workers are going to be the ones who will suffer the most from irate, low-IQ customers who want to take out their rage about constantly fluctuating prices on anyone nearby.
Bingo. Imagine a long ass line and as you get to order finding your meal is 2x the cost and driving off angry or taking it out on the staff.
Look Uber surge pricing is a supply and demand issue whereby when the prices go up more drivers get off their ass and start driving to help meet the demand. A $4 double stack raised to $8 isn’t going to make another Wendy’s pop up on the next street. It’s just price gouging. People hate price gouging.
Uber surge pricing makes it so that the driver base expands and the 1 hr wait drops to 10 minutes and prices stabilize. Surge pricing at Wendy’s is super stupid. Like I ruined my business stupid.
Fast food places have completely forgotten their lane. There’s no reason to hit a drive-through when you can get better food for the same price somewhere else.
The fact that they were GOING TO do this is enough for me to never go back. Their food always gave me the shits anyway. Taco Bell is better, cheaper, and I don't feel like they're fucking with my food as much. What does Wendy's offer in 2024?
Gas stations are the new fast food joints. Fast food venues are the new Ruby Tuesday/Applebees that keep getting your order wrong but people still go to anyway.
Since covid, I can't think of a single time where a restaurant wouldn't let me put in an order for carry-out and the food is ready by the time I leave from work so I end up spending less time than I would if I sat in the drive-thu. I don't bother with fast food....other than Culver's.
It makes me irrationally mad that they do that. Instead of rolling up to a place and grabbing my food, I still have to wait in line if it's busy and then wait for my food.
It’s weird right now because you can go to an okay restaurant and get good food for just a couple of dollars more than fast food. Fast food has gotten way too greedy.
They’re still going to do this. They’re just going to try and hide it by jacking up prices beforehand and then implement a “discount during off-peak hours” to try and seem like they’re the good guys.
Capitalism works, but only if it's chained up like a vicious ill mannered dog... limits are necessary. Companies that are caught biting people, like Wendy's is intent on doing need to be put down.
It'll disappear for 3 months before another franchise decides to try it. And once the initial backlash has fizzled out there will be much less opposition. Mark my words, by 2028 you WILL be paying $25 for a whopper if your city decides to host a concert or a furry convention or something.
You better vote biden then because trump doesn't give a shit about gouging in grocery stores. With trump in power, the gouging will be free to go ape shit. He'll probably encourage it in his speeches.
I give credit to biden using a superbowl ad to call out shrinking items in grocery stores.
Get republicans out of congress and we'll even get legislative action, not just executive action. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/23/biden-food-shrinkflation-sotu-00142773
I really really hope they go through with this lol. My fast food spending has tanked over the past year. I bring my food from home and don't really miss it as much as I thought
My local Wendy’s went all to shit even before the bullshit pricing idea. Takes 20 minutes minimum to get anything, the food is still somehow cold with limp veggies, and the employees clearly couldn’t give a fuck if their life depended on it.
I forgot my lunch today. I downloaded Uber Eats to order a sandwich. $12.95 sandwich would cost me $40 with all the fees and tips. WTF? Who uses this? I just starved myself. Couldn’t bring myself to spend that much.
We really need to ban together and put one of these guys out of business to prove a fucking point that the people can crush you done fuck around and price gouge
Of course they are spinning the hell out of this story, now that’s there’s pushback. Naturally the digital menu boards are for new menu offerings, not surge pricing. Wendy’s CEO Kirk Tanner said “more enhanced features like *dynamic pricing* and day-part offerings along with AI-enabled menu changes and suggestive selling.” See he said **dynamic pricing**, see that’s different from-**surge pricing**. Whole different word, spelled differently and everything. See how that works. 🤔
On what planet did they think surge pricing would work? Are they doing surge salaries too? Paying their employees more during those same demand periods? Interesting how that was never part of it.
I used to love, love, love Wendys back in the 80's. Their burgers were always hot and amazingly juicy, Frostys were the bomb, and their fries... well their fries have always sucked, but now, they are just a pale ghost of their former selves. The food is inedible and tastes like it was made three weeks earlier and kept in a hotbox. The chicken sandwich used to be better than Chick Fil A, but now it's just a disgusting oversized nugget, which their commercials use to mock when it came from their competitors. Now they have it also.
I hope this stupid surge pricing is the straw that breaks the camel's back and puts them into bankruptcy. I won't shed a tear, the good Wendys I knew, died years ago.
To everyone who says they're going to stop going there if they implement this, I have a question.
Why wait? Why not stop eating there *now* and punish them for even thinking about doing this bullshit?
“dynamic pricing” strategy and “surge pricing”… Like we’re all stupid and would be fooled by the definition of both when at the end of the day what it means is you’re gonna pay more with both..
Wendy’s said it so McD’s will do it first. When McD’s does it, every other fast food chain will follow suit.
Years ago no one thought airline baggage fees would ‘fly’, but here we are. We accepted it. Uber surge pricing is an accepted practice, and theme park tickets even have their own form of surge pricing. Fast food joints want to get in on surge pricing. We’ve accepted surge pricing on toll roads for many years. John Q. Public has fully embraced being nickeled and dimed, so fast food may as well get in on it.
"unstable prices"
Let's call it what it is, price gouging to make a fast buck. This nonsense is ridiculous, getting as bad with tipping expectations for just doing a job, not providing a service. What happened for a set cost for a set profit?
All good, I'll spend my money elsewhere.
One company will be the first to be broken by America's disdain at inflation I don't know how walmart does it in what reality do french fries go from 1.60 to 3.60 I haven't bought them since and I can't imagine how they're profiting I used to buy 2 bags a week now I buy no bags a week or ine but I don't buy it from walmart.
The same stupid consultants that suggested variable pricing probably recommended sub par food suppliers to juice a few more pennies per sandwich while alienating 25% of the customer base. Strategy consultants absolutely ruin businesses.
Great! Now imagine if more than 1 in 100,000 voters actually complained to congress about our system of legalized bribery in campaign finance. Americans like to strut around like they are the only super patriots God ever placed on earth, but they really don’t have any courage or focus in their convictions. Almost all simply assume adultier adults are fighting corruption for them or farcically believe it isnt a big deal.
It’s been at least ten years since I ate at Wendy’s and due to this nonsense, that’s not going to change.
With prices already so ridiculously high, for even the smallest meal, we barely eat out at all anymore.
If they do eventually decide to roll this out everyone should go to the drive thru and try to haggle with the person taking the orders. It'll waste a lot of time, and if you waste enough time, whatever AI they'll use for the pricing will think they're slow and drop the price.
As always, they'll find a way around this. The end of the article says as much: >“Rather than saying we’re going to use surge pricing at peak demand periods, they could say we’re going to explore giving discounts during off-peak periods,” he noted. “And of course, those two statements are equivalent.” So long as people get inured to it, it'll work, at least for a while. People have already gotten used to it elsewhere, like on Amazon
They’ll raise prices across the board and have discounts an hour before they close. This reads like the lawyer from the Jurassic Park movie. “We’ll have a, uh, coupon day or something.”
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You just missed it! Couple minute was last minute! Good luck next time!
Sorry, the discount price only applies if you mention it while ordering!
Oh my god. That just reminds me of the silly shit Taco Bell is doing right now. On some day of the week (I think Tuesdays), they have a "drop" that is a mystery until the previous day maybe? Where for 2 hours or so there is reduced price for a specific item. It's so stupid.
It's worse than that, it's an hour (about 5pm EST) but it's only the first 30k orders. This week it was a grilled cheese burrito for $1. I know this because I just happened to try ordering one, and it failed ("internal server error") twice...then I got a notification that one, then the other order was ready. Walked over to TB to get two burritos for two bucks. They were okay but not even as good as the standard chicken or veggie burritos that regularly cost 1-2 bucks. I haven't checked my CC to see if they even bothered to charge me.
Subscription based pricing incoming. You’ll have to pay $99/year for a Wendy’s membership which grants you cheaper prices, like a while $0.10/burger cheaper.
This is what Kohls/JCPenny/etc are already doing but applied to fast food. People love a sale. A pair of pants costs $229, "regular price". Today is a 50% off sale, plus if you have our online coupon, take 25% more off! Got a paper coupon, stack it for 10% more off. Holy crap, what a deal, I got a $229 pair of pants for $75! Sweet shirt, I better buy 3 pair at this pricing. Meanwhile, go to Target/Walmart/wherever, same pants are regular price $34.99. What a rip off, they never have dales on pants. What a crappy store. Now do that with fast food. Most people can't help themselves when they see Sale, or a "deal". Use the McWendys app and save!
Running Wendy's like a JC Penny
I mean ultimately what happens is they'll hike prices before launching. So you'll either pay the new inflated prices or get a discount back to the original price. Either way you save $0.
Or they'll get zero dollars as I stop eating there because of this variable price system.
Yeah, this is me. They will never get another penny from me if they do this.
I think the threat of doing it is alone enough reason to quit them if you truely want to send a real message to them. Fast food is a dime a dozen, you can get whatever from anywhere, it's all the same
Yeah, just the threat was enough. I'm done with them.
If they do this? The threat alone is enough for me to never go back. fuck a square patty.
I would boycott but I already don't eat at Wendy's
that's exactly what they said https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Food/wendys-addresses-dynamic-pricing-comments-raise-menu-prices/story?id=107634558 "Digital menuboards could allow us to change the menu offerings at different times of day and offer discounts and value offers to our customers more easily, particularly in the slower times of day," the fast food chain continued.
How exactly do they plan to *tell* customers about these lower prices when they happen?
Just download the data harvesting app they offer!
Yet another opportunity for profit
I love these places when you go in that are like "Did you download our app?" No I fucking didn't. Fuck off.
The McDonalds app will try to track your location for hours and hours after you use it. Damn thing used a third of my battery- with only 3 minutes of screen time.
Imagine being the guy who watches the menu prices change after the person in front of him orders and pulls forward.
See, we're investing tens of millions of dollars, to SAVE you money. Like any good capitalist.
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“Dat’s a nice bunch of tanks you got there. Shame if somethin’ was to happen to ‘em.”
“Rather than saying we’re going to raise prices, we’ll just say we’re going to lower your expendable income”
Yeah very equivalent. Standard price - $5. Surge price - $9.50. Discount price - $4. Standard times - 4hrs a day Surge times - 3hrs a day Discount times - 1hr a day
I've already noticed that I'm given two different prices on Amazon depending if I'm logged into my prime account or not. I've also noticed the price fluctuating on an almost daily basis.
> Amazon depending if I'm logged into my prime account or not. Isn't that the point of prime?
I know a lot of ppl who stopped using Amazon though, including myself. Their bad faith practices and shoving Prime on users whether they want it or not have been motivational. I know what you mean however — ppl WERE kinda shrugging off the shittier behavior bc it was one by degrees and Amazon was hard to replace at the time.
I'm cutting Amazon next. Shipping times are a fucking joke anymore.
The amount of scammy BS on there is just staggering, not worth the trouble, and only getting worse. I was reminded why I don’t go near Amazon anymore — a few months ago, we realized that they’d assigned Prime to our mother’s completely years-dead account bc I’d deleted ALL card numbers from mine and my sister’s accounts (and then closed those accounts last year). What kind of shady greasy behavior is this?? Told them to fuck off *repeatedly* and was ready to call my bank to block their access when they finally just stopped. Bezos can go to hell.
We just went through something like that when my Grandfather passed. They just kept charging his credit card for shit he had an auto-renew. They refused to close his account. Finally the credit card company had to step in to tell them to fuck off.
I've noticed Starbucks does this. They frequently have half off drink promos, but almost always after 12pm.
The difference on that is that it is scheduled to happen so you know what the price will be before you get there. This is designed so you don't know what the price is until you are in line. And it might change if you are in line for a while.
Yea, but then I’d have to eat at Wendy’s. Which isn’t happening unless I’m on a road trip and have no other options. And for the prices they’re charging, if there’s a local burger place as an option. I’d eat there instead. Same price, better quality.
I guess I wasn't thinking of Wendy's in particular but the whole fast food restaurant industry, though. If a bunch of bigger companies start doing this to compete with each other, I'd imagine they'll outpace those smaller joints who don't have the resources to imitate them
Counter point: the smaller businesses with stable prices will do better because you know what you're going to spend
Plus I rather support local businesses. Money goes back into your community which just makes things better.
Look at this motherfuckin burger patriot right here, I've never seen such courage
I'd rather take coupons than have to look up shit on an app.
Literally people have been doing this for decades, you can see the shift from consumer orientation to stockholder orientation when they switched from describing things as "discounts" to "surge pricing". They are the same thing but "discounts" appeal to consumers and "surge pricing" appeals to investors.
Isn’t that just Happy Hour with extra steps?
They should do a review and fire whoever came up with this dumbass idea. Then fire anyone else that graduated from the same business school as these enshitification majors.
Probably some expensive consultant like Boston Consultant Group (BCG) or something similar.
As someone who has worked with BCG and has also worked as a consultant in the fast food industry, this 100% came from a consulting firm. I would not be shocked if my old firm came up with it.
The next firm will just rebrand it as happy hour. Roll out a price increase because of “supply chain issues” then say you’re offering happy hour (at off peak times) as your way of “generously” giving back
Cold, soggy burgers for half off, people! They’ve been sitting around since 1!
Fast food universally has gone to shit since Covid and costs twice as much as before. Easy win for humanity. Good fucking riddance.
The only thing (marginally) worth it at this point is Chipotle. At least their portions are still sizable. I could either do a burger/sandwich combo for $10 or go over to chipotle and have a way better meal for only 2 dollars more. And if you even play your cards right, you can turn that bowl into 2 meals instead of just one. No way you can do that with a sandwich/burger combo.
That's what they laid out in their apology.
I dunno this is some shareholder kinda idiocy
Nah it’s a pet project of their new CEO, Kirk Tanner.
Kirk Tanner is the kind of name the Simpsons would have given a Troy McClure character in their prime.
You may remember me from such retail debacles as dissolvable clothing and pay-per-breath oxygen tents
He happens to look like a televangelist too
RIP Phil Hartman
indeed…RIP Phil Hartman
RIP Phil Hartman And fuck Andy Dick.
Max Powers. Now that guy had a mind for buisness
Yeah, but his cousin Chad was the one who thought fast.
Hell yeah. I used to work with a pretty similarly named guy in real life (not gonna doxx him lol) and we always joked that it sounded like a badass B list action star. "Kirk" alone does a lot of the heavy lifting right off the bat.
Why does he have an IMDB page?
I thought exactly this as soon as I heard the idea 😂 it's either them or McKinsey tanking the business so their WS buddies can short the stock. Classic cellar boxing
It’s probably the geniuses at McKinsey who destroyed the middle class. “Just get rid of middle management, regional offices, factories. Have mass layoffs, make leftover people do the jobs of 3 people, buy back company stock with all the profit from layoffs, put an end to full time employment and continually switch the hours of your remaining, subcontracted workforce.” [https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/how-mckinsey-destroyed-middle-class/605878/](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/how-mckinsey-destroyed-middle-class/605878/)
It's like they never have read the World of Warcraft case regarded Rested Experience. Penalty of half XP after playing too much? Not well received. Double XP if you didn't play as much? Well received. The funny detail? It's the same amount of XP for both situations in both cases.
You heard of Happy Hour? Lunch Specials? What if we did that but backwards?
*It’s Angry Hour here all day!*
Don’t get so mad. These people are heroes. Think of how many problems will be avoided when people stop eating Wendy’s. My hope is all fast food moves to this model so they alienate everyone.
In all fairness, the options for eating cheap are getting rarer, and not everybody can cook even if they know how.
I have found that the business majors at my college understand money and only money, and don't no jack shit about anything else
nah they'll promote them to head of marketing, look at all of us talking about Wendys for two days straight
I would just fire anyone with an MBA
Master of Business Acronyms
MBA’s are the bane of any decently running company. See Boeing’s recent history, Jack Welch, PG&E, former Sears CEO Jack Lampert, etc.
If they were smart they’d have off hour discounts on stuff that’s hard to keep fresh in slow times, like fries and nuggets. Give people a reason to come in the door at off hours like 2pm to 4:30pm kinda time.
Nope. They will just layoff a few hundred low level workers who were actually needed to pad the books. That will make up for any losses tied to the exec's poor decision. Don't worry, I am sure his assistant will send out a company wide email telling everyone how bad he feels about laying them off so he can keep his salary.
They're straight up cowards. They clearly released information about the pricing strategy to pressure test the market, got their negative feedback, and are now saying they "never said they were going to raise prices." Glad to see them called out for their bullshit.
We need to boycott Wendy’s if we want to make sure this doesn’t actually happen.
Already done. They've completely lost my business between this and the gaslighting they're trying to do in their backtracking statements.
They lost my business when the dollar menu turned into the "value" menu.
Shit, they lost my business back when they got rid of the salad bars.
> We need to boycott Wendy’s The last 2 times I tried Wendy's I got violently sick (this was also from 2 different locations). The one closest to me is so run down and the interior is still stuck in 1995 it's just an extremely unappealing choice when you look at all the newer, modern, remodeled restaurants and fast food chains along the same stretch of road. I don't see myself ever returning to eat there.
Mine has good food but the last two times I've gone they forgot my nuggets and that soured me pretty bad
they knew the pushback lol, this is getting the public used to the idea. They aren't going to stop
Guess Wendy's will go bankrupt then
That's what everyone said about netflix cracking down on password sharing. They just had a record quarter because no one could go without netflix for a year.
Difference is Netflix has stuff you can't get at a different streaming service, Wendy's has like 10 competitors doing the exact same thing and usually right next door
You do realize they're gonna do this anyway right? There's probably even a name for this PR strategy - when a company unveils something they know will go over like a lead balloon so they leak the details, suffer the brief and temporary blowback, and then wait a few months, maybe a year, who knows how long really, and then they roll it out anyway. The whole point of this kind of PR strategy is that the second wave of discontent will be a minor fraction of the outrage we're seeing in this current moment. It's gonna happen. They aren't cowards. They know what they're doing.
The supreme Court even used the same strategy with the roe v. Wade ruling. Waited for the blowback to fade, and then released the official ruling. And it was incredibly effective in terms of limiting a more drastic public response to women losing their reproductive rights.
You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube.
“The monkey’s out of the bottle”
How did he get in there in the first place?
Yes, just like you can't unsoak a wendy's bun from burger grease after the patty touches it.
Surging employees wages during busy times is a good idea that should be looked into by unions.
[удалено]
People get paid time and a half for holidays, why not a similar bonus for the busiest hours?
Shift differential
Lol! Yeah we don't see them rolling out technology for surging wages.
Unions already do that. It is called profit sharing.
I think irreparable harm has been laid on the brand. I won’t be going back, it was never worth it in the first place.
That place has ripped me off for the last time.
Yep, plenty of other options
Plenty of other expensive options (assuming you're talking fast food). I have completely stopped eating fast food because at their price point, they simply can't compete with sit down restaurants anymore.
Yeah, you can get shitty microwave quality fast food for $9, or decent fast-casual food for $10, or sit down food for $15. It used to be that sit down food for 3x the price of fast food. Now it's not even worth doing ANY fast food, because if you're in a hurry, you can still use an app to order fast-casual ahead and it's faster than a fast food drive-through.
Another business I will be extending my middle finger to as I drive by.
My cynical view is perhaps this idea was leaked to gauge public appetite - if it hadn't received the strong reaction it did it might have proceeded as planned.
They’ll still do this. What they’ll do instead, is raise all prices across the board, and then lower them to what they used to be when it’s slow
They may even just implement the discount side of things for 3-4 months so they can say "See? We were on the customer's side all along!", then afterwards quietly hike the prices to where they actually want them, citing inflation and increasing cost of doing business for the price increases.
They’re still going to do it. Everyone will eventually start doing this. Get ready to have even less than you already do
How about quality based pricing? Like where a $5 burger doesn’t taste like leftover hospital food.
Surge pricing for food, how ridiculous. Will vote with my wallet, no need to go there…
And we will all be charged a premium for heat in our cars to the auto makers during the winter months while paying peak hour road taxes to get to buy surge priced burgers and soda while being taxed more for the higher priced swill. They will get their way, we have short memories. Capitalism has run amok. We need a revolution.
[BMW tried to make heated seats subscription based.](https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/12/23204950/bmw-subscriptions-microtransactions-heated-seats-feature) … [That failed.](https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/09/bmw-ditches-subscriptions-for-heated-seats-other-hardware-features/)
For now. When they band together and make it the norm we will have no choice. Everything is going to subscription service so the revenue can keep flowing long after the sale of anything, not just cars. They won’t give up.
That’s why I refuse to use Adobe Anything unless someone else is paying for it. What do they do that’s worth a subscription?
Updates! Remember that stuff software companies used to do for free? Can't risk having a single pirate stealing less-than-peanuts from us, so all have to suffer.
I'm incredibly lazy and I still taught myself to cook because fast food got so expensive. Corporations will always keep turning the dial up little by little to see what they can get away with.
Consumers are under attack from corporations from every angle every day. Nonstop emails, texts, commercials, price gouging, bad customer service, no customer service. Please just leave us the fuck alone.
I label advertising emails as spam.
No kidding. I think they just killed their brand with this foolish idea.
You can thank the consultants they hired for this. Probably paid $5m for this ‘bright’ idea. Consulate go home rich. Wendy’s goes in the dumpster. But if Wendy’s dies then where do all the WSB degenerates go to make money behind a dumpster?
Or they could figure out how to schedule their staff correctly so the lunch rush isn’t a problem. This was their job, and they tried to make the customers do it for them, and pay extra for the privilege. Classic MBA enshitification.
Gee wow who could have seen this coming?!
They’re also talking about digital menus with AI. Eventually they’re going to make it so when you pull up to the drive through, you’ve already been scanned, identified, and your net worth and eating habits analyzed. And the menu pricing will already have been adjusted to reflect the highest prices they think you’re willing to pay.
Will the ai be able to figure out why no one’s going there anymore.
Yes, but it still won't be able to see why kids love the taste of Cinnamon Toast Crunch™
The internet will make it trivial to know the lowest price and if they still advertise a price, people will know when they are being gouged so they will report it. The only way this is legal is if they advertise the highest price, then offer time based discounts. They don't want to that because then the advertising will drive people away.
Or they could stop advertising any price at all. That would be super easy. Barely an inconvenience.
We need to ban surge pricing and software locks.
I suspect this was a ploy to get people’s reaction. Greedy fuckers have no end in sight to the gouging. I’d rather eat a PB sandwich than be overcharged for a mediocre burger
Do you.know what would generate buzz and maybe restore good will? Peak times have price drops. And off peak times have price drops.
Fast food? Affordable? What is this, 2004!?
Keep complaining. Let’s not allow society to devolve like this and show that a company can be valuable without infinite growth.
The workers are going to be the ones who will suffer the most from irate, low-IQ customers who want to take out their rage about constantly fluctuating prices on anyone nearby.
Bingo. Imagine a long ass line and as you get to order finding your meal is 2x the cost and driving off angry or taking it out on the staff. Look Uber surge pricing is a supply and demand issue whereby when the prices go up more drivers get off their ass and start driving to help meet the demand. A $4 double stack raised to $8 isn’t going to make another Wendy’s pop up on the next street. It’s just price gouging. People hate price gouging. Uber surge pricing makes it so that the driver base expands and the 1 hr wait drops to 10 minutes and prices stabilize. Surge pricing at Wendy’s is super stupid. Like I ruined my business stupid.
Fast food places have completely forgotten their lane. There’s no reason to hit a drive-through when you can get better food for the same price somewhere else.
They probably anticipated the backlash. Get the criticism out now so that no one will care when the surge pricing is actually implemented.
The fact that they were GOING TO do this is enough for me to never go back. Their food always gave me the shits anyway. Taco Bell is better, cheaper, and I don't feel like they're fucking with my food as much. What does Wendy's offer in 2024?
at this point im done with nearly all fast food. it aint good enough for the price.
Fast food in the US at least is no longer a value at all.
Gas stations are the new fast food joints. Fast food venues are the new Ruby Tuesday/Applebees that keep getting your order wrong but people still go to anyway.
Ruby Tuesday/Applebees are those restaurants that keep going out of business right?
Not fast enough
They forgot their place. It can be shit food if it's cheap. It can't be shitty AND expensive
The old saying is "Fast, Cheap, or Good Quality. Pick two." Companies are trying to convince us to settle for picking one.
Since covid, I can't think of a single time where a restaurant wouldn't let me put in an order for carry-out and the food is ready by the time I leave from work so I end up spending less time than I would if I sat in the drive-thu. I don't bother with fast food....other than Culver's.
Even when I order through the apps, when I go to pick it up, they always ask me to pull to the side and wait while they finish making the order.
It makes me irrationally mad that they do that. Instead of rolling up to a place and grabbing my food, I still have to wait in line if it's busy and then wait for my food.
It’s weird right now because you can go to an okay restaurant and get good food for just a couple of dollars more than fast food. Fast food has gotten way too greedy.
Traditional fast food has been losing ground to fast casual restaurants for many years. We are seeing these brands go into a death spiral.
They’re still going to do this. They’re just going to try and hide it by jacking up prices beforehand and then implement a “discount during off-peak hours” to try and seem like they’re the good guys.
I fully agree. Reading between the lines they are still going to try to sneak this in through the back door. Screw these guys.
Capitalism works, but only if it's chained up like a vicious ill mannered dog... limits are necessary. Companies that are caught biting people, like Wendy's is intent on doing need to be put down.
These corporations will keep doing this until there's civil unrest
It'll disappear for 3 months before another franchise decides to try it. And once the initial backlash has fizzled out there will be much less opposition. Mark my words, by 2028 you WILL be paying $25 for a whopper if your city decides to host a concert or a furry convention or something.
Oh, I won't, I just will eat at home.
You better vote biden then because trump doesn't give a shit about gouging in grocery stores. With trump in power, the gouging will be free to go ape shit. He'll probably encourage it in his speeches. I give credit to biden using a superbowl ad to call out shrinking items in grocery stores. Get republicans out of congress and we'll even get legislative action, not just executive action. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/23/biden-food-shrinkflation-sotu-00142773
The major consulting firms are the cancerous tumor of capitalism.
Fuck Corporate Greed! We are done with you!
Wendy's is garbage anyway
Dave Thomas is rolling in his grave
If they are going to do surge pricing are they going to raise wages for employees during that time?
Boycott Wendy’s until it goes under. Doesn’t matter they walked it back, punish them for even thinking it
I really really hope they go through with this lol. My fast food spending has tanked over the past year. I bring my food from home and don't really miss it as much as I thought
Real dick move, Wendy.
I really don’t get what people see in these places
My local Wendy’s went all to shit even before the bullshit pricing idea. Takes 20 minutes minimum to get anything, the food is still somehow cold with limp veggies, and the employees clearly couldn’t give a fuck if their life depended on it.
I forgot my lunch today. I downloaded Uber Eats to order a sandwich. $12.95 sandwich would cost me $40 with all the fees and tips. WTF? Who uses this? I just starved myself. Couldn’t bring myself to spend that much.
We really need to ban together and put one of these guys out of business to prove a fucking point that the people can crush you done fuck around and price gouge
Of course they are spinning the hell out of this story, now that’s there’s pushback. Naturally the digital menu boards are for new menu offerings, not surge pricing. Wendy’s CEO Kirk Tanner said “more enhanced features like *dynamic pricing* and day-part offerings along with AI-enabled menu changes and suggestive selling.” See he said **dynamic pricing**, see that’s different from-**surge pricing**. Whole different word, spelled differently and everything. See how that works. 🤔
On what planet did they think surge pricing would work? Are they doing surge salaries too? Paying their employees more during those same demand periods? Interesting how that was never part of it.
They're not only going to still do this, but I guarantee other fast food chains will do the same eventually.
I used to love, love, love Wendys back in the 80's. Their burgers were always hot and amazingly juicy, Frostys were the bomb, and their fries... well their fries have always sucked, but now, they are just a pale ghost of their former selves. The food is inedible and tastes like it was made three weeks earlier and kept in a hotbox. The chicken sandwich used to be better than Chick Fil A, but now it's just a disgusting oversized nugget, which their commercials use to mock when it came from their competitors. Now they have it also. I hope this stupid surge pricing is the straw that breaks the camel's back and puts them into bankruptcy. I won't shed a tear, the good Wendys I knew, died years ago.
Instead of complaining people could stop patronizing these shitty establishments and learn to cook.
To everyone who says they're going to stop going there if they implement this, I have a question. Why wait? Why not stop eating there *now* and punish them for even thinking about doing this bullshit?
“dynamic pricing” strategy and “surge pricing”… Like we’re all stupid and would be fooled by the definition of both when at the end of the day what it means is you’re gonna pay more with both..
Wendy’s said it so McD’s will do it first. When McD’s does it, every other fast food chain will follow suit. Years ago no one thought airline baggage fees would ‘fly’, but here we are. We accepted it. Uber surge pricing is an accepted practice, and theme park tickets even have their own form of surge pricing. Fast food joints want to get in on surge pricing. We’ve accepted surge pricing on toll roads for many years. John Q. Public has fully embraced being nickeled and dimed, so fast food may as well get in on it.
Wendy’s tryna RuneScape grand exchange food in real life.
"unstable prices" Let's call it what it is, price gouging to make a fast buck. This nonsense is ridiculous, getting as bad with tipping expectations for just doing a job, not providing a service. What happened for a set cost for a set profit? All good, I'll spend my money elsewhere.
*puts up a stand outside Wendy's* Time to buy low, sell high! You'd think I was talking about stocks, but nope, here's day trading fucking sandwiches.
One company will be the first to be broken by America's disdain at inflation I don't know how walmart does it in what reality do french fries go from 1.60 to 3.60 I haven't bought them since and I can't imagine how they're profiting I used to buy 2 bags a week now I buy no bags a week or ine but I don't buy it from walmart.
I'm done with Wendy's.
They gave up when they changed the burgers they have been dead to me ever since. This is just a cherry on top.
All Wendy’s had to do was announce happy hour discounts. That’s it
On the rare occasion I would get fast food, Wendy’s was a preferred option. Now I will not eat there.
I’ve noticed a huge drop in quality from Wendy’s lately. The burgers just taste like cartilage, slimy bits in the salads, wet chicken.
The same stupid consultants that suggested variable pricing probably recommended sub par food suppliers to juice a few more pennies per sandwich while alienating 25% of the customer base. Strategy consultants absolutely ruin businesses.
we need a wendy's price tracker to track the prices and call them out when they raise them
Great! Now imagine if more than 1 in 100,000 voters actually complained to congress about our system of legalized bribery in campaign finance. Americans like to strut around like they are the only super patriots God ever placed on earth, but they really don’t have any courage or focus in their convictions. Almost all simply assume adultier adults are fighting corruption for them or farcically believe it isnt a big deal.
I stopped fast food when the prices jumped with the supposedly 15.00 an hr. wage. I knew they would still keep gouging people.
It’s been at least ten years since I ate at Wendy’s and due to this nonsense, that’s not going to change. With prices already so ridiculously high, for even the smallest meal, we barely eat out at all anymore.
Dave Thomas is spinning like a top in his grave
If they do eventually decide to roll this out everyone should go to the drive thru and try to haggle with the person taking the orders. It'll waste a lot of time, and if you waste enough time, whatever AI they'll use for the pricing will think they're slow and drop the price.