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Fuck you Wendy's


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4 minutes ago, Mother mopar said:

Spicy Chicken Sandwich slams and goes hard.

No it doesn't. Not when there's usually a Popeye's around much closer than a Wendy's. 

Wendy's isn't nearly popular enough, nor do they have enough locations to do surge pricing. Chick-fil-a could get away with that shit. Wendy's can't. 

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I never think of Wendy’s anymore. Growing up the Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger was the best thing ever. Then in college they shrunk it to a slider and raised the price. I think I got spicy nuggets a few years ago, they were good. Wouldn’t pull up if there’s a line anyway, same for all fast food these days which is universally slow as shit. I think Whataburger is still working in an order I placed in 2018.

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AI powered menu board that recognizes the weather outside, the time of day, and reads your license plate so it knows you really want a frosty at 3 pm when it's 100° in july february, and plays an animation asking if you've ever dipped fries into your frosty and sells you on a combo when you pull up?  not a terrible use of compute resources. 

 

this bullshit?  no.

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One of the hallmarks of fast food is reliability.  Yeah we know if you go to a completely different area you might pay more due to taxes or supply differences, but anyone who has been in line behind a senior citizen screaming that their 55 cent coffee is now 58 cents knows how this is going to play out.  For better or worse, some of their customers plan out their budgets including these things.

This really only works if you're ordering via delivery service where you can see the price instead of committing to actually drive to the store. We've already accepted that menu prices are different via those services, so this wouldn't be a huge change.  The amount of ire this is going to create is insane.

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There is an easy solution - veto the idea with your wallet. It isn't like there aren't other burger or sammy choices nearby. Unless you are hooked on frostie's there is nothing really unique that they are doing. 
If you really think it is going to fail, and they lose sales, profits and market share - the look to short the stock (it is publicly traded) or just load up on some puts. The stock is at $18, you can buy Jan 2025 $17 strike puts for about $1, or $13 strike will cost you about $0.25. But then you'd have to post in the stonk thread

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8 minutes ago, Wally Fairway said:

There is an easy solution - veto the idea with your wallet. It isn't like there aren't other burger or sammy choices nearby. Unless you are hooked on frostie's there is nothing really unique that they are doing. 
If you really think it is going to fail, and they lose sales, profits and market share - the look to short the stock (it is publicly traded) or just load up on some puts. The stock is at $18, you can buy Jan 2025 $17 strike puts for about $1, or $13 strike will cost you about $0.25. But then you'd have to post in the stonk thread

I seriously doubt anyone cares that much.

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It’s a terrible marketing job but a good concept if you do it by store by demand. The problem with these big chains is they are in lockstep on price and promotion. A 2for1 fish sandwich might fly in one part of town but not in others. And the math they do on a national basis is complex.

They should have just said we have great new technology that enables real time store specific promotions based on traffic, item demand, inventory, etc to go with the national /regional standard pricing and promos. Some stores need help at the dinner hour. Some may have meat they need to move thru before it goes bad.

They be idiots to say it’s the lunch rush so add 2 bucks to a double.

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4 hours ago, Tylerocks said:

This is going to be an enormous fail.  Like wtf are they thinking?

I don't eat a ton of fast food, but the last time I did I was surprised at how "much" it was for a regular value meal.

Kirk Tanner is a fucking idiot.

It used to be cheap and fast.  Now it's just fast.  You can get a burger at whatever family chain restaurant you find palatable, and it will cost as much as your fast food combo meal. 

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5 hours ago, CooterBrown said:

I don't think I've eaten at a Wendy's in over 15 years.  It's weird because we would eat there maybe once a month and then it just stopped. I'm not even sure where there's a Wendy's if that one on Far West is gone.

Longer for me.  I recall the last time was the one on MLK while studying for finals my first year of law school in Spring of 1997.  I was never a fan.  When we ate shitty fast food growing up because we didn't know any better, Wendy's was below McDonald's, Burger King, and Hardee's.

The one on Far West is surprisingly still there.  

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Wendy’s clarifies ‘dynamic pricing’ system won't raise prices at peak times

 

Quote

“To clarify, Wendy’s will not implement surge pricing, which is the practice of raising prices when demand is highest. We didn’t use that phrase, nor do we plan to implement that practice,” a spokesperson said in an email to NBC News. They added there are “no plans” to raise prices at high-demand times."

 

Full Text of the article:

Spoiler

Wendy’s is clarifying what the company's CEO meant in a recent call with analysts when he said the fast-food chain plans to roll out “dynamic pricing.”

In mid-February, Kirk Tanner, the new CEO and president of Wendy’s, shared with analysts that they would be rolling out new plans to improve company profits, including digital menu boards that will be more easily able to change the prices of items, as well as testing dynamic pricing and daypart offers, according to Nation’s Restaurant News.

Tanner explained that they plan to invest about $20 million to “roll out digital menu boards to all U.S. company-operated restaurants by the end of 2025 and approximately $10 million over the next two years to support digital menu board enhancements for the global system.”

The digital boards are meant to improve order accuracy and increase sales by upselling certain menu items.

By 2025, the fast food restaurant chain will begin testing dynamic pricing, which is a time-based pricing strategy that companies use to increase or decrease prices for their services or items depending on the time and demand.

While initially compared in the media (including on TODAY.com) to the concept of “surge pricing” on the Uber app when prices rise as drivers are scarce, Wendy’s clarified how the company plans to use “dynamic pricing” in a statement on Feb. 27.

“To clarify, Wendy’s will not implement surge pricing, which is the practice of raising prices when demand is highest. We didn’t use that phrase, nor do we plan to implement that practice,” a spokesperson said in an email to NBC News. They added there are “no plans” to raise prices at high-demand times.

“We said these (digital) menu boards would give us more flexibility to change the display of featured items. This was misconstrued in some media reports as an intent to raise prices when demand is highest at our restaurants. We have no plans to do that and would not raise prices when our customers are visiting us most,” the Feb. 26 statement reads. “Any features we may test in the future would be designed to benefit our customers and restaurant crew members. Digital menu boards 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.”

A Wendy’s spokesperson had initially confirmed the digital menus, as well as dynamic pricing, in a Feb. 26 statement to TODAY.com, noting the company's future ability to change prices at different times of day. The initial statement did not say the fast-food chain would only lower prices with the new dynamic pricing model.

“As we’ve previously shared, we are making a significant investment to accelerate our digital business. In addition to evolving our loyalty program, we are leveraging technology even more with the rollout of digital menu boards in some U.S. restaurants,” the statement read. “Beginning as early as 2025, we will begin testing a variety of enhanced features on these digital menu boards like dynamic pricing, different offerings in certain parts of the day, AI-enabled menu changes and suggestive selling based on factors such as weather.”

The statement adds that “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. We will test a number of features that we think will provide an enhanced customer and crew experience.”

In the meeting with analysts, Tanner noted that the company has already rolled out its “Wendy’s Fresh AI” in many restaurants, “where we see ongoing improvement in speed and accuracy.”

The digital menus will help reflect the fluctuating prices throughout the day. Tanner said the new rollouts will “play a key role on our restaurant team, enabling the crew to focus on what matters: preparing fresh high-quality Wendy’s favorites and building customer relationships to bring them back time and again.”

Back in 2023, NBC’s Sam Brock told TODAY that dynamic pricing was creeping into restaurants, movie theaters, bowling alleys and more.

“Experts say more businesses are tracking consumer spending habits to determine when and even what to charge more for,” Brock said, adding that to avoid dynamic pricing check online for promo codes, discounts, loyalty programs and more.

Additionally, the CEO said to analysts that the company will also be investing more money to advertise its new breakfast menu offerings. It recently teamed up with Cinnabon for a new breakfast item and added two additional breakfast offerings: English muffin sandwiches and a breakfast burrito.

According to Nation’s Restaurant News, the company is also testing “saucy nuggets” with flavors like honey-barbecue, Buffalo, garlic-Parmesan and ghost pepper in a small number of restaurants in Ohio.

EDITOR’S NOTE (Feb. 27, 2024, at 8:30 p.m. PT): This story has been updated with a clarification from Wendys that dynamic pricing will not include price increases at high-traffic times.

 

 

 

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Just now, sith_horn said:

This story has been updated with a clarification from Wendys that dynamic pricing will not include price increases at high-traffic times.

That the fine folks at Wendy's corporate didn't realize, INSTANTLY, that "surge pricing" was exactly how every single human was going to interpret their "dynamic pricing" pitch makes the company leadership singularly unqualified to run the fucking company.  "We had no idea that using a term that is synonymous with 'fucking over the consumer' would actually be interpreted as us planning to fuck over consumers!"  Dumbasses.

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That the fine folks at Wendy's corporate didn't realize, INSTANTLY, that "surge pricing" was exactly how every single human was going to interpret their "dynamic pricing" pitch makes the company leadership singularly unqualified to run the fucking company.  "We had no idea that using a term that is synonymous with 'fucking over the consumer' would actually be interpreted as us planning to fuck over consumers!"  Dumbasses.
A few interns are now updating their resumes.
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48 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

That the fine folks at Wendy's corporate didn't realize, INSTANTLY, that "surge pricing" was exactly how every single human was going to interpret their "dynamic pricing" pitch makes the company leadership singularly unqualified to run the fucking company.  "We had no idea that using a term that is synonymous with 'fucking over the consumer' would actually be interpreted as us planning to fuck over consumers!"  Dumbasses.

They proved that when they thought it was a good idea to use Caleb Williams in one of their commercials.

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Wendy's is in a weird position in the market. They're better than McDonald's, Burger King, Sonic and Jack in the Box, but not as good as Whataburger, In N Out, Shake Shack , or 5 Guys. They're neither really cheap like the shit chains, nor are their burgers "good" like the others. (I don't post this to argue whether any of the "better" chains deserve to be in that category.)

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5 minutes ago, 4th&Five said:

My trips to Wendy’s are limited at this point to twice a year for a small Frosty but I always thought their chicken (sammy, strips, nugs) were better than the other FF places, including Whataburger. 

And this is why I no longer go to Wendy’s.  I used to get a spicy chicken sandwich meal about once a week.  The fast food chicken sandwich landscape has changed a lot in the last 10-20 years.  CFA started it.  Popeyes finished it.  Both are closer to my house than the nearest Wendy’s.

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1 minute ago, conVINCEd said:

And this is why I no longer go to Wendy’s.  I used to get a spicy chicken sandwich meal about once a week.  The fast food chicken sandwich landscape has changed a lot in the last 10-20 years.  CFA started it.  Popeyes finished it.  Both are closer to my house than the nearest Wendy’s.

There's a Popeye's close to your house?

2ac657db-ae85-4041-8122-6258a83e2653_tex

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6 hours ago, Al_4_ISU said:

This whole thing made me think how I can't remember the last time I ate Wendy's, and then I thought about how I can hardly remember the last time I ate fast food at all.  At this point, it's only when I'm travelling.

I absolutely blame Brisket for this, but when I am traveling I prefer to skip the fast food places and instead see what the local gas station has to offer. 

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1 minute ago, Kennythetiger said:

I absolutely blame Brisket for this, but when I am traveling I prefer to skip the fast food places and instead see what the local gas station has to offer. 

The happy compromise is a Dairy Queen.  Dependable.  Reliable.  Better than an alsups burrito.  But if you find yourself in a town that isn’t big enough to keep a DQ in business,  the alsups burrito looks pretty fucking good.

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4 hours ago, sith_horn said:

offer discounts and value offers to our customers more easily, particularly in the slower times of day.”

Which is completely different than raising prices in the busy times 

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I like the texture on the spicy chicken sandwich, but the patty has gotten smaller every year of its existence. And they drown it in mayo. Never even bothered to come up with a special sauce. 
 

Burgers taste pretty good, but the patties are small. You have to order with cheese to get a proper meal. 
 

I do like their fries. I wish they’d all stop chasing McDonalds fries and do their own thing like Wendy’s. Whataburger’s hash browns are much better than their fries. Jack in the Box should go exclusively curly fries. Burger King should just charge a little more and give you chicken sticks instead of fries. 
 

I think most people aren’t going to pick Wendy’s if they have other options. Convenience is the only reason to eat there. They should try to get into every office building in the country. 

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1 hour ago, conVINCEd said:

The happy compromise is a Dairy Queen.  Dependable.  Reliable.  Better than an alsups burrito.  But if you find yourself in a town that isn’t big enough to keep a DQ in business,  the alsups burrito looks pretty fucking good.

8 piece steak finger basket ftw.

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