'Dynamic pricing' brings a dynamic response from Wendy's customers
Forty years ago I was at a Wendy’s with a friend when the cashier asked “Is this for the dining room?” and my friend, completely without irony, responded “No, it’s for here.”
He might have been slightly hungover at the time, but the point remained — a “dining room” seemed a little pretentious and incongruous with a seating area that flashed more plastic than a Black Friday sale at Target.
The hamburgers then were about twice the size they are now, and they've gotten to the point that, as with many packaged foods, they can’t make them any smaller without it becoming absurd.
So as we enter late-stage capitalism, how can a company that took in $2.17 billion in 2022 wring a few more pennies from its customers’ pockets?
With dynamic pricing! It sounds so happy. Dynamic pricing! Yippee! Who could be against that?
Except “dynamic” is a loaded word. Your best friend’s wife isn’t a relentless busybody, she’s dynamic. In the corporate world it’s like “synergies.” If a project can’t be justified for any hard-and-fast reason, the manager just sprinkles in a few “synergies” and that makes it acceptable.
So when the Wendy’s CEO said the company was sinking $20 million into digital menu boards that would allow for “dynamic pricing,” everyone knew what he meant. (Familiar examples of dynamic pricing are the digital gasoline signs, with which ExxonMobil raises a few pennies whenever someone sneezes in the Middle East.)
The restaurant would be able to goose prices at times of peak demand, just like the power company, and ratchet them back down at 2:30 in the afternoon when Americans, sated by their noontime repast of grease and carbs, are fast asleep at their desks.
No wait, late-breaking news. When the Frosty hit the fan after the announcement of "dynamic pricing" caused a national outrage, we learn that this isn’t what Wendy’s is doing at all; it was just a big misunderstanding.
“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,” said Wendy’s spokeswoman Heidi Scheuer.
What they’re doing, see, is not charging more in times of demand; they’re charging less in times of low demand.
Oh, OK. But it sounds to me like Daylight Savings Time might just have been an idea dreamed up by Wendy’s spokeswoman Heidi Scheuer. You’re not losing an hour in the morning, you’re gaining an hour at night. You’re not charging more at mealtime, you’re charging less at other times of the day. Or whatever.
This is like when the supermarket doubles the price of London Broil prior to a “buy one, get one free” sale. Who really thinks Wendy’s won’t raise prices across the board before “lowering” them during off-peak hours to what they’re charging now? And if you raised your hand, I have a cow that was once owned by Dave Thomas I would like to sell you.
Because American corporations are always investing $20 million with the goal of reducing profits, right?
Note, too, that the CEO made his announcement during an earnings call to investors, analysts and business reporters. Professional cats. These business reporters have been around; they know what they’re doing. They’re not like some dope on NewsNation.
So it seems highly unlikely that anything was “misconstrued.” For now, Wendy is scurrying off with her pigtails between her legs, with dynamic price increases off the table — at least until the American herd of outrage goes stampeding off to some other atrocity.
We can tolerate a crisis at the border, third-world health care, slaughter in Gaza and Ukraine, a sizzling planet, child poverty, serial liars in Congress, declining housing standards and the lobotomizing effects of social media. Just don’t be messing with our cheeseburgers.
Tim Rowland is a Herald-Mail columnist.
The latest job threats posed by AI? Believe it or not, it might be to porn stars
Wayne LaPierre was always a contradiction. And that's what he made the NRA
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Is 'dynamic pricing' a euphemism for raising prices?
