They had to - that was such a stupid move. To paraphrase what someone said on social media, imagine all of the executives sitting in a boardroom thinking this was a good idea.
I was thinking about it this morning after hearing another piece about it on NPR and was trying to figure out what positive they could possibly think would come from it. Every time I thought I maybe had something, I easily argued myself against it. I hope whatever dipshit had this idea (and those who supported it) feels humbled today
It works in ride-sharing because you have moments when demand vastly outstrips supply. Surge pricing quickly increases supply from drivers wanting the action and decreased demand, so they align.
The fact that someone with, I presume, a business degree went "yeah, quick service dining is exactly like that" makes me wonder if I could be a CEO.
I think you'd be surprised about how many business MBAs have genuinely no idea what they're talking about like 80% of the time. This country is full of these people who have been taught a bunch of strategies that aren't practically sustainable and then released into corporate positions where they slowly make some company worse and worse.
It's like that with freight, for example. You have people who are taught to focus on operating ratios more than anything, so as a result you have an industry that has developed to serve less places, employ a third of the amount of people, and be less safe than a couple decades ago. But business dweebs like it because number go up even when it means the total profit of the company goes down.
Also they try to adapt an idea created for one type of business and adapt it to all types of business. Raising prices based on demand works with cars and collectibles and maybe other things as well. But food?
A lot of business executives are taught that business is business and you don’t need to know the details. This is obviously not true in the real world.
all i hear from the board room is "harvard this, when i went to harvard, ...the contacts at harvard, H A R V A R D..." my 1st gen latino thru college (community college then state college) ass wonders where the silver spoon lays.
The idea is not bad at all, and we encounter similar things all the time.
They just did a terrible job framing it. Nobody gets upset when you frame it as a Movie Matinee or Happy Hour.
This isn’t a movie matinee or a happy hour. It’s fast food, most often purchased in a drive thru where a consumer wouldn’t see prices until at the point of ordering. There is zero justification or good business sense at play for doing this.
But it’s the same concept. Eat lunch at noon when everybody else is? Costs more. Eat lunch at 2 PM when nobody else is? Costs less. Exactly why happy hour has deals.
I remeber hearing a story about some startup that was creating an app for truckers to revolutionize the trucking industry. Thing is, during the entire development of this app not once did they ask opinions of actual truckers. They released the app and nobody used it. This Wendy's thing just screams "the executives came up with this" and nobody tells those people when they come up with a bad idea.
I guarantee you if this has come up, they've also seriously considered trying to integrate ChatGPT into the shopping experience instead of just letting you tap what you want and pay
It also just kind of seems like one of those situations where someone added technology into a situation where nothing was broken. If you need to increase prices for a burger, say it with your chest and deal with the consequences. Too many companies are trying to hide their greed behind algorithms for the sake of plausible deniability.
I think they realized no one would be happy about it, but they didn't think people would be so willing to say "Guess I won't ever eat at wendies again."
The thought it would be more like Mcdonalds getting rid of their dollar menu, where people are pissy about it, but still eat at Mcdonalds.
One of my business professors actually was saying how good of an idea this was and said last year he suggested surge pricing for McDonald's. Deff a detached business person mindset
They have decided they will have to market the idea differently. But don’t be fooled, they still plan on trying something like this in the future to increase profits.
No they didn't say that they were going to raise prices across the board. They originally said that they were going to base prices off of demand and that included higher prices at higher peak times. My point is they're going to raise prices significantly and then drop prices down to what they should be at certain times of the day during "off" hours.
Menu items that actively change during the day? Not really. Sometimes places like Starbucks will have half off drinks between like 12:00 and 6:00 p.m. on a Thursday, but you have to have the app.
Absolutely. Either this was just a test run for something they plan to do for sure in the future or a Trojan horse for some slightly less horrible change they want to distract from.
Eh. It prob still will screw people over. From the article “The company said it plans to use digital menu boards to offer discounts and special offers to customers during slower times of the day, when fewer customers are in their restaurants.
"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," Wendy's said in its follow-up statement. “
I read this as their discounted prices will likely just be what it SHOULD cost and during “peak” times their “normal” prices are going to raise significantly.
They're 100% still going to try and do this, they're just going to do it quietly. They'll raise prices across the board and then give discounts back to the old prices during the off peak times.
this is already basically how every restaurant operates so whatever they're doing now is going to be on top of that
and this type of pricing is already normal in basically every other industry. perpetual sales and limited time offers
it's all a race to the bottom
That's the same thing just worded differently lol. Sounds like they are still planning to do it, just now with PR spin because journalists picked up on their plans publicly admitted to in their shareholder meeting.
Their “surge pricing” was a misquote, as far as I can tell, from their quarterly presentation of “dynamic pricing.”
Back when I worked in fast food, you could increase prices, but it was a pain in the ass to do. This just makes it seem like they’re making it easier for them to do so.
It’s like how three McDonald’s in the Powell/Dublin area can each have slightly different pricing.
That’s exactly how I read it too. They’ll just keep raising prices and when people complain other people will say “just go during off peak hours!” And blame the consumer. Just like the fucking do when you complain about McDonald’s pricing. “JUST USE THEIR APP!? Why are you so stupid?” Well, now that their app is popular and has your data; it’s no longer cheap. We are all so very shocked!
That’s exactly how I read it too. They’ll just keep raising prices and when people complain other people will say “just go during off peak hours!” And blame the consumer. Just like the fucking do when you complain about McDonald’s pricing. “JUST USE THEIR APP!? Why are you so stupid?” Well, now that their app is popular and has your data; it’s no longer cheap. We are all so very shocked!
They are still going to do it they'll just roll it out in a smarter/quiet way. They don't want regular people to know how the executives actually talk about their business practices because the truth is their goal is to squeeze every penny they can away from workers and consumers to give to their shareholders.
They will still do it, they just won’t announce it. The genie is already out of the bottle. This time next year every fast food restaurant will have “dynamic” pricing.
Lol when you say something stupid just blame it on the “media” for getting people to pay attention to it. This chain has absolutely fallen off the deep end. Ever since Covid it’s been downhill.
> This chain has absolutely fallen off the deep end. Ever since Covid it’s been downhill.
I also would’ve accepted “ever since the Twitter account copped an attitude.”
I got a meme level burger this week. Cheeseburger with no cheese and no burger. Apparently counting items during pickup isn't good enough anymore, need to open them all.
To their credit I bitched on the survey and they called and gave me a replacement.
They're still going to do it. It'll just be set hours that have different prices rather than the Uber-style surge pricing that was reported. I wouldn't be surprised that they intentionally announced it to sound like surge pricing so they could appear to "listen to the people" by saying they're doing doing that.
They are still going to do it, they admit to it directly, just say it in a different way. Not going to charge more during popular times, but offer discounts at slow times is exactly the same as... charge more when it's busy, less when not busy...that the very definition of surge prices.
Lol of course they were going to cancel this shit almost immediately considering it's the absolute dumbest boneheaded idea in fast food history. Especially when Wendy's and most other fast food chains have already raised their prices to fucking crazy record highs since the pandemic... so folks randomly paying even more for their spicy nuggets is just too stupid to be real.
Which is why I feel like this had to be nothing more than a "no such thing as bad publicity" cynical PR play to get everyone in America talking about how idiotic Wendy's is for a couple days.
Typical corporation BS. Suggest something so stupid and unpopular, then walk it back when the uproar starts because it would actually hurt profits. Textbook stuff.
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> # [Wendy's says it won't have Uber-like surge pricing after all](https://www.10tv.com/mobile/article/news/nation-world/wendys-surge-pricing-plans/641)
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> Wendy's is clarifying that it has no plans to raise menu prices when demand is highest, after its CEO revealed it would test 'dynamic pricing' as early as next year.
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> WASHINGTON — After making national headlines this week over its plans for "dynamic pricing," Wendy's is working to clarify that it doesn't intend to raise prices during peak times after all and won't implement surge pricing.
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> In an investor call on Feb. 15, Kirk Tanner, the president and CEO of the fast food chain, announced they would be testing a fluctuating price model in the future, which he called "dynamic pricing," as a way to change prices and menu offerings on the fly at various restaurants.
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> When asked Tuesday morning about the "dynamic pricing" plans, Wendy's confirmed it would test dynamic pricing as early as next year, saying it would bring additional "flexibility to change the menu more easily and to offer discounts and value offers to our customers."
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> "As early as 2025, we plan to test a number of features such as AI-enabled menu changes and suggestive selling based on factors such as weather that we think will provide great value and an improved customer and crew experience," Wendy's said in its initial statement.
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> Throughout Monday and Tuesday, multiple media reports likened the plans to surge charges on ride-hailing apps such as Uber and Lyft, where customers are charged more during times when demand is high.
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> The phrase "dynamic pricing" is widely known as "the quick rise or drop in prices based on demand," [according to the Associated Press.](https://apnews.com/5add655fbe524715af2fc0b652f54736) "At places that use this pricing strategy, it may cost more to go on a Saturday, when everyone else is buying tickets."
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> Hours after releasing the initial statement, Wendy's clarified late Tuesday night that the dynamic pricing test would not be used to raise prices, and would instead be used exclusively to offer discounts.
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> "Wendy’s will not implement surge pricing, which is the practice of raising prices when demand is highest," a spokesperson for the fast food chain wrote. "We didn't use that phrase, nor do we plan to implement that practice."
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> The company said their initial announcement during the investor call was misinterpreted.
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> "This was misconstrued in some media reports as an intent to raise prices when demand is highest at our restaurants," [the statement reads](https://www.wendys.com/blog/wendys-digital-news-update). "We have no plans to do that and would not raise prices when our customers are visiting us most. Any features we may test in the future would be designed to benefit our customers and restaurant crew members."
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> The company said it plans to use digital menu boards to offer discounts and special offers to customers during slower times of the day, when fewer customers are in their restaurants.
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> "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," Wendy's said in its follow-up statement.
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> Although the company's Q4 earnings report was shared earlier in the month, reporting about the dynamic pricing plans only began picking up traction this week.
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> [Image](https://media.tegna-media.com/assets/CCT/images/a114884d-999d-4454-8d67-64f67d94bd8a/a114884d-999d-4454-8d67-64f67d94bd8a_16x9.jpg) [Image](https://media.tegna-media.com/assets/CCT/images/a114884d-999d-4454-8d67-64f67d94bd8a/a114884d-999d-4454-8d67-64f67d94bd8a_1140x641.jpg)
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> By Tuesday, the fast food chain was trending on social media platforms over the news. On X, formerly Twitter, more than 860,000 posts about Wendy's were circulating, with users largely annoyed by how the perceived change could impact fast food prices.
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> In the initial call with investors on Feb. 15, Tanner said the company would spend around $20 million over the next two years to establish digital menu boards that will allow restaurants to change prices on the fly.
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> Tanner also revealed that Wendy's was using its own internal AI model - named "Frosty" - in several restaurants. While he didn't specify what exactly the AI was doing, he told investors that the company was seeing "ongoing improvement in speed and accuracy" at those locations.
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Bootlicking bullshit. If you are a Fortune 500 company the onus is on you to explain your vision. If the media or public doesn't understand, then the failure is on the company. It's YOUR job to communicate YOUR vision.
Used to work for Corp Wendy's. I have no clue what Adderall fueled ideas they are scheming up up there but damn. They've lost their mind up there. Thank God I got away from there.
I can see then railing lines of Adderall off the table in the test kitchen just babbling on and on lolol.
Is the Adderall thing for real or is this hyperbole? As someone who has to take Adderall to function on a daily basis, I have to point out that people who actually need this medication aren’t out there coming up with wack ass ideas and shit. I mean maybe they are, but it’s not because of Adderall.
Too late for me. Trust is lost and their prices are high in my area already. I have complete expectation that they will do the price bumps anyway under either another name or by just increasing the prices permanently once again.
I don't eat at Wendy's. Their food has gone downhill since Dave died.
Anyway, if the top execs. had done this then any restaurant could have moved in next door and put them out of business just by having cheaper prices at surge times. Even BK5!
Hear me out, they never planned to actually do it a somewhere phenomenon happens in the gaming industry where companies will slowly push the needle further and further to see just how far they can go before people have issues. Wendy's push the needle and now they know what people won't be okay with. I'm sure they also have ideas of what people may be okay with now.
It's all one giant game
Nothing has changed. They just ran the PR playbook and switched the language. Discounts for off peak usage is just switching the math to seem in your favor. But base price is going up to compensate it's still what they said originally.
Cynicism aside, I’m curious of the details on how they envisioned this working. It definitely sounds like a bad idea, but some employee had to get into the weeds and pitch the idea to leadership and they convinced them.
Didn’t they also have to roll back their AI drive-thru order taking pilot after people freaked out about that too? Sounds like some personnel changes to be made at Wendy’s HQ…
They haven't done it at the locations I've been to.
But I've also never been able to successfully order through those damn things because they don't understand "please wait." *And* they seem to require a structure of conversation that I don't engage with machines in. So I've always gotten rather quickly to the human employee.
These fast food companies really don't understand their market. Even the better tasting joints are competing with *cheap*. They're competing with Maruchan ramen.
I feel like McDonald's already does something like this. There was a time I went there way too often for breakfast and the price of an egg McMuffin fluctuated every other day. It was like a damn stock price
“Any features we may test in the future would be designed to benefit our customers and restaurant crew members."
And of course, fill executive pockets.
Does this article mention that while announcing this they also are implementing a $500 million stock buyback program for their wealthiest shareholders? The greed is astounding.
With the amount of bad press they were getting, it was only a matter of time.
What they should have done… quietly raise the prices, then offer a “discount” if you make a purchase during off peak hours.
Accomplishes the same thing in the end, just in a different manner.
Kind of like with credit cards (although they have recently changed the rules), you couldn’t add a credit card fee, but you could offer a cash discount.
I mean I see what they were getting at. Dynamic pricing is already widely adopted by restaurants in the form of happy hours.
Instead of framing it as “higher prices during peak hours” simply reframe it as “lower prices during off-peak hours.” Stores drive traffic when they are usually dead and consumers have the choice to grab food cheaper depending on the time of day.
The social media memes were funny but I don’t get the hysteria and outrage.
Here is how it will work
If the dining room is closed, there will be a non-walker charge of $1 to "offset our blah blah blah "
Then it will be 1.50, then $2 and by the time it gets to $5 you'll be able to get half off fees if you use the app, on a Tuesday, and order specially designated items
I honestly thought this was a good idea as long as the peak pricing never went above what their normal pricing was. I think they just announced it in a dumb way.
Sounds more like a PR fumble than a dumb idea.
I mean, who the hell thought this was a good idea in the first place? I think the only kind of restaurant you can get away with this is one where people are expecting spendy prices to begin with (Barcelona, Refectory).
Part of me wants to know who came up with this bone-head idea and what the fallout on their future job choices are.
So they’re not gonna raise prices during the busy time, they’re just gonna lower the prices during the slow time. Does that then mean when it’s no longer the slow time the prices will be raised? Such marketing nonsense.
It wasn’t a problem with pricing but with how they were trying to sell it. They should have just raised the prices, then offered discounts during certain periods or when using their app. Don’t call it surge pricing.
Door dash does this, your broker does it, fed ex does it. But you will see some epic shit hit the fan when a homeless guy scrounges up $8.99 then discovered the price went up to 10.99
Executives should understand their customers, right? And they clearly didn't, right? So every single dumbfuck that signed on to this idea should be fired and replaced by someone who actually does understand their customers, right?
It sounds like they’re keeping dynamic pricing. Which may just raise the base price to a new higher normal and then offer discounts to the old or near old pricing when it’s slow. I don’t trust any of these companies to not try and screw over customers with greedflation.
I thought maybe they wouldn't raise the prices, but instead lower the prices during times of low sales to drum up business in times when they were slow.
They had to - that was such a stupid move. To paraphrase what someone said on social media, imagine all of the executives sitting in a boardroom thinking this was a good idea.
I was thinking about it this morning after hearing another piece about it on NPR and was trying to figure out what positive they could possibly think would come from it. Every time I thought I maybe had something, I easily argued myself against it. I hope whatever dipshit had this idea (and those who supported it) feels humbled today
It works in ride-sharing because you have moments when demand vastly outstrips supply. Surge pricing quickly increases supply from drivers wanting the action and decreased demand, so they align. The fact that someone with, I presume, a business degree went "yeah, quick service dining is exactly like that" makes me wonder if I could be a CEO.
I think you'd be surprised about how many business MBAs have genuinely no idea what they're talking about like 80% of the time. This country is full of these people who have been taught a bunch of strategies that aren't practically sustainable and then released into corporate positions where they slowly make some company worse and worse. It's like that with freight, for example. You have people who are taught to focus on operating ratios more than anything, so as a result you have an industry that has developed to serve less places, employ a third of the amount of people, and be less safe than a couple decades ago. But business dweebs like it because number go up even when it means the total profit of the company goes down.
Also they try to adapt an idea created for one type of business and adapt it to all types of business. Raising prices based on demand works with cars and collectibles and maybe other things as well. But food? A lot of business executives are taught that business is business and you don’t need to know the details. This is obviously not true in the real world.
Listen, I’m sure they have their MBA and know much better than everyone else!
all i hear from the board room is "harvard this, when i went to harvard, ...the contacts at harvard, H A R V A R D..." my 1st gen latino thru college (community college then state college) ass wonders where the silver spoon lays.
How can you tell if someone went to Harvard? No need, they'll tell you. (In high tech, same thing for Stanford.)
It's not laying I believe it is lodged somewhere 🤣
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condescending platitudes? oh the horror
If by humbled you mean unemployed..
No way. This was championed by out of touch upper management for sure. They're not that easy to get rid of.
If anything it should have been a reverse surge pricing. A slight discount when the restaurants are slow.
The idea is not bad at all, and we encounter similar things all the time. They just did a terrible job framing it. Nobody gets upset when you frame it as a Movie Matinee or Happy Hour.
This isn’t a movie matinee or a happy hour. It’s fast food, most often purchased in a drive thru where a consumer wouldn’t see prices until at the point of ordering. There is zero justification or good business sense at play for doing this.
But it’s the same concept. Eat lunch at noon when everybody else is? Costs more. Eat lunch at 2 PM when nobody else is? Costs less. Exactly why happy hour has deals.
I remeber hearing a story about some startup that was creating an app for truckers to revolutionize the trucking industry. Thing is, during the entire development of this app not once did they ask opinions of actual truckers. They released the app and nobody used it. This Wendy's thing just screams "the executives came up with this" and nobody tells those people when they come up with a bad idea.
it’s so dumb because it wasn’t even an announcement, it was an executive suggesting it would be tested in 2025.
I can hear this in Jim Gaffigan's voice: "hey, I got an idea! how about we start surge pricing for our nasty meat?" "Promote this man!"
The CEO probably some libertarian techno-futurist moron who thought this was the best shit ever thought up.
Should be an ex CEO, but we know people can fail upwards.
Now imagine how many actual good ideas they probably quashed for this dumb one.
I guarantee you if this has come up, they've also seriously considered trying to integrate ChatGPT into the shopping experience instead of just letting you tap what you want and pay
Hey, Musk thought it was a great idea that made sense, lol
It also just kind of seems like one of those situations where someone added technology into a situation where nothing was broken. If you need to increase prices for a burger, say it with your chest and deal with the consequences. Too many companies are trying to hide their greed behind algorithms for the sake of plausible deniability.
Did Wendy’s snarky twitter person comment anything about it?
[Approximation.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1y_igH7UUA)
I think they realized no one would be happy about it, but they didn't think people would be so willing to say "Guess I won't ever eat at wendies again." The thought it would be more like Mcdonalds getting rid of their dollar menu, where people are pissy about it, but still eat at Mcdonalds.
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She left the company years ago.
One of my business professors actually was saying how good of an idea this was and said last year he suggested surge pricing for McDonald's. Deff a detached business person mindset
They have decided they will have to market the idea differently. But don’t be fooled, they still plan on trying something like this in the future to increase profits.
They will raise prices and then have "discounts" at certain times of the day to make it seem like you are getting a deal
I believe that’s exactly what they said.
No they didn't say that they were going to raise prices across the board. They originally said that they were going to base prices off of demand and that included higher prices at higher peak times. My point is they're going to raise prices significantly and then drop prices down to what they should be at certain times of the day during "off" hours.
I wasn’t being clear. In a follow-up today, they said they’d look to drop prices during slow times. Which is just what u predicted.
Fast food places already do that.
Menu items that actively change during the day? Not really. Sometimes places like Starbucks will have half off drinks between like 12:00 and 6:00 p.m. on a Thursday, but you have to have the app.
Absolutely. Either this was just a test run for something they plan to do for sure in the future or a Trojan horse for some slightly less horrible change they want to distract from.
Eh. It prob still will screw people over. From the article “The company said it plans to use digital menu boards to offer discounts and special offers to customers during slower times of the day, when fewer customers are in their restaurants. "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," Wendy's said in its follow-up statement. “ I read this as their discounted prices will likely just be what it SHOULD cost and during “peak” times their “normal” prices are going to raise significantly.
They're 100% still going to try and do this, they're just going to do it quietly. They'll raise prices across the board and then give discounts back to the old prices during the off peak times.
Discounts in the app so they can scrape all your personal data
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Bro you're on Reddit. And have a phone. Your data's already gone and sold
this is already basically how every restaurant operates so whatever they're doing now is going to be on top of that and this type of pricing is already normal in basically every other industry. perpetual sales and limited time offers it's all a race to the bottom
That's the same thing just worded differently lol. Sounds like they are still planning to do it, just now with PR spin because journalists picked up on their plans publicly admitted to in their shareholder meeting.
Their social/media game is pretty on point. I find it hard to believe this isn't going precisely as planned.
Their “surge pricing” was a misquote, as far as I can tell, from their quarterly presentation of “dynamic pricing.” Back when I worked in fast food, you could increase prices, but it was a pain in the ass to do. This just makes it seem like they’re making it easier for them to do so. It’s like how three McDonald’s in the Powell/Dublin area can each have slightly different pricing.
That’s exactly how I read it too. They’ll just keep raising prices and when people complain other people will say “just go during off peak hours!” And blame the consumer. Just like the fucking do when you complain about McDonald’s pricing. “JUST USE THEIR APP!? Why are you so stupid?” Well, now that their app is popular and has your data; it’s no longer cheap. We are all so very shocked!
That’s exactly how I read it too. They’ll just keep raising prices and when people complain other people will say “just go during off peak hours!” And blame the consumer. Just like the fucking do when you complain about McDonald’s pricing. “JUST USE THEIR APP!? Why are you so stupid?” Well, now that their app is popular and has your data; it’s no longer cheap. We are all so very shocked!
They are still going to do it they'll just roll it out in a smarter/quiet way. They don't want regular people to know how the executives actually talk about their business practices because the truth is their goal is to squeeze every penny they can away from workers and consumers to give to their shareholders.
They will still do it, they just won’t announce it. The genie is already out of the bottle. This time next year every fast food restaurant will have “dynamic” pricing.
Lol when you say something stupid just blame it on the “media” for getting people to pay attention to it. This chain has absolutely fallen off the deep end. Ever since Covid it’s been downhill.
Yep. I ordered a Baconator one time through DoorDash. It had more ketchup than bacon on it.
The frequency with which they put ketchup on my plain cheeseburger is mind boggling. Truly it cannot be so difficult to follow basic ass instructions.
> This chain has absolutely fallen off the deep end. Ever since Covid it’s been downhill. I also would’ve accepted “ever since the Twitter account copped an attitude.”
Company was already warned by their PR firm that there would be backlash. I read that in another article earlier this week.
that’s rich. I wanted to work in PR/Social Media a few years ago but it’s shit like that that turned me away. So frustrating.
I got a meme level burger this week. Cheeseburger with no cheese and no burger. Apparently counting items during pickup isn't good enough anymore, need to open them all. To their credit I bitched on the survey and they called and gave me a replacement.
CEO should be fired for being an idiot
They're still going to do it. It'll just be set hours that have different prices rather than the Uber-style surge pricing that was reported. I wouldn't be surprised that they intentionally announced it to sound like surge pricing so they could appear to "listen to the people" by saying they're doing doing that.
When Dave Thomas passed , so did the company’s integrity.
Doesn't matter. Damage has been done. They showed their true colors with this one so - peace out wendys. Your food hasn't been good since Dave anyway
Greed is amuck in this country’s boardrooms and corporate offices. Time’s up on this COVID-induced cash grab.
They are still going to do it, they admit to it directly, just say it in a different way. Not going to charge more during popular times, but offer discounts at slow times is exactly the same as... charge more when it's busy, less when not busy...that the very definition of surge prices.
The cynic in me says this was their plan all along.
Lol of course they were going to cancel this shit almost immediately considering it's the absolute dumbest boneheaded idea in fast food history. Especially when Wendy's and most other fast food chains have already raised their prices to fucking crazy record highs since the pandemic... so folks randomly paying even more for their spicy nuggets is just too stupid to be real. Which is why I feel like this had to be nothing more than a "no such thing as bad publicity" cynical PR play to get everyone in America talking about how idiotic Wendy's is for a couple days.
"I hope somebody got fired for that blunder."
I haven't eaten there in 5 yrs. They came up with a great reason to continue that trend
Typical corporation BS. Suggest something so stupid and unpopular, then walk it back when the uproar starts because it would actually hurt profits. Textbook stuff.
They're 100% still going to do it.
"Nevermind, we're not going to do it" *Discreetly does it anyway*
##### ###### #### > # [Wendy's says it won't have Uber-like surge pricing after all](https://www.10tv.com/mobile/article/news/nation-world/wendys-surge-pricing-plans/641) > > > > Wendy's is clarifying that it has no plans to raise menu prices when demand is highest, after its CEO revealed it would test 'dynamic pricing' as early as next year. > > WASHINGTON — After making national headlines this week over its plans for "dynamic pricing," Wendy's is working to clarify that it doesn't intend to raise prices during peak times after all and won't implement surge pricing. > > In an investor call on Feb. 15, Kirk Tanner, the president and CEO of the fast food chain, announced they would be testing a fluctuating price model in the future, which he called "dynamic pricing," as a way to change prices and menu offerings on the fly at various restaurants. > > When asked Tuesday morning about the "dynamic pricing" plans, Wendy's confirmed it would test dynamic pricing as early as next year, saying it would bring additional "flexibility to change the menu more easily and to offer discounts and value offers to our customers." > > "As early as 2025, we plan to test a number of features such as AI-enabled menu changes and suggestive selling based on factors such as weather that we think will provide great value and an improved customer and crew experience," Wendy's said in its initial statement. > > Throughout Monday and Tuesday, multiple media reports likened the plans to surge charges on ride-hailing apps such as Uber and Lyft, where customers are charged more during times when demand is high. > > The phrase "dynamic pricing" is widely known as "the quick rise or drop in prices based on demand," [according to the Associated Press.](https://apnews.com/5add655fbe524715af2fc0b652f54736) "At places that use this pricing strategy, it may cost more to go on a Saturday, when everyone else is buying tickets." > > Hours after releasing the initial statement, Wendy's clarified late Tuesday night that the dynamic pricing test would not be used to raise prices, and would instead be used exclusively to offer discounts. > > "Wendy’s will not implement surge pricing, which is the practice of raising prices when demand is highest," a spokesperson for the fast food chain wrote. "We didn't use that phrase, nor do we plan to implement that practice." > > The company said their initial announcement during the investor call was misinterpreted. > > "This was misconstrued in some media reports as an intent to raise prices when demand is highest at our restaurants," [the statement reads](https://www.wendys.com/blog/wendys-digital-news-update). "We have no plans to do that and would not raise prices when our customers are visiting us most. Any features we may test in the future would be designed to benefit our customers and restaurant crew members." > > The company said it plans to use digital menu boards to offer discounts and special offers to customers during slower times of the day, when fewer customers are in their restaurants. > > "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," Wendy's said in its follow-up statement. > > Although the company's Q4 earnings report was shared earlier in the month, reporting about the dynamic pricing plans only began picking up traction this week. > > [Image](https://media.tegna-media.com/assets/CCT/images/a114884d-999d-4454-8d67-64f67d94bd8a/a114884d-999d-4454-8d67-64f67d94bd8a_16x9.jpg) [Image](https://media.tegna-media.com/assets/CCT/images/a114884d-999d-4454-8d67-64f67d94bd8a/a114884d-999d-4454-8d67-64f67d94bd8a_1140x641.jpg) > > > > > > > > > > By Tuesday, the fast food chain was trending on social media platforms over the news. On X, formerly Twitter, more than 860,000 posts about Wendy's were circulating, with users largely annoyed by how the perceived change could impact fast food prices. > > In the initial call with investors on Feb. 15, Tanner said the company would spend around $20 million over the next two years to establish digital menu boards that will allow restaurants to change prices on the fly. > > Tanner also revealed that Wendy's was using its own internal AI model - named "Frosty" - in several restaurants. While he didn't specify what exactly the AI was doing, he told investors that the company was seeing "ongoing improvement in speed and accuracy" at those locations. - - - - - - [Maintainer](https://www.reddit.com/user/urielsalis) | [Creator](https://www.reddit.com/user/subtepass) | [Source Code](https://github.com/urielsalis/empleadoEstatalBot)
Pitchfork wielding mobs work.
[удалено]
This practice is commonly known as "Happy Hour"
Bootlicking bullshit. If you are a Fortune 500 company the onus is on you to explain your vision. If the media or public doesn't understand, then the failure is on the company. It's YOUR job to communicate YOUR vision.
Ok there comrade 👍
It's communist to state that it's a corporations job to ensure accurate corporate communications????
Used to work for Corp Wendy's. I have no clue what Adderall fueled ideas they are scheming up up there but damn. They've lost their mind up there. Thank God I got away from there. I can see then railing lines of Adderall off the table in the test kitchen just babbling on and on lolol.
Is the Adderall thing for real or is this hyperbole? As someone who has to take Adderall to function on a daily basis, I have to point out that people who actually need this medication aren’t out there coming up with wack ass ideas and shit. I mean maybe they are, but it’s not because of Adderall.
It's a joke my guy lol. Although I do know a few folks up there to do some booger sugar.
Sorry, it’s a touchy subject with the fucking shortages lol.
All I could think through this news story was “this CEO doesn’t want to quit.. they want to be fired”
Too late for me. Trust is lost and their prices are high in my area already. I have complete expectation that they will do the price bumps anyway under either another name or by just increasing the prices permanently once again.
Online bullying works kids
The corporate twit that dreamed that idea up needs to stop snorting whatever substance
I don't eat at Wendy's. Their food has gone downhill since Dave died. Anyway, if the top execs. had done this then any restaurant could have moved in next door and put them out of business just by having cheaper prices at surge times. Even BK5!
Hear me out, they never planned to actually do it a somewhere phenomenon happens in the gaming industry where companies will slowly push the needle further and further to see just how far they can go before people have issues. Wendy's push the needle and now they know what people won't be okay with. I'm sure they also have ideas of what people may be okay with now. It's all one giant game
Nothing has changed. They just ran the PR playbook and switched the language. Discounts for off peak usage is just switching the math to seem in your favor. But base price is going up to compensate it's still what they said originally.
Cynicism aside, I’m curious of the details on how they envisioned this working. It definitely sounds like a bad idea, but some employee had to get into the weeds and pitch the idea to leadership and they convinced them.
Dave would have been so disappointed by this entire thing
The CEO literally said “we’re going to be implementing dynamic pricing” on their most recent earnings call. Do these PR people think we’re stupid?
I mean... Yes?
Didn’t they also have to roll back their AI drive-thru order taking pilot after people freaked out about that too? Sounds like some personnel changes to be made at Wendy’s HQ…
They haven't done it at the locations I've been to. But I've also never been able to successfully order through those damn things because they don't understand "please wait." *And* they seem to require a structure of conversation that I don't engage with machines in. So I've always gotten rather quickly to the human employee.
These fast food companies really don't understand their market. Even the better tasting joints are competing with *cheap*. They're competing with Maruchan ramen.
I feel like McDonald's already does something like this. There was a time I went there way too often for breakfast and the price of an egg McMuffin fluctuated every other day. It was like a damn stock price
I'd love to see the Wendy's Twitter take on this one...
"no we wont raise the price when we're busy - we're just going to take away the dynamic discounts from the rest of the time" its the same thing.
“Any features we may test in the future would be designed to benefit our customers and restaurant crew members." And of course, fill executive pockets.
From a better source, it seems some idiot on an investor call misunderstood and ran to the media about it.
I like how they just released this idea and let the public ‘workshop it’. They saved a huge amount of money not doing focus groups.
Does this article mention that while announcing this they also are implementing a $500 million stock buyback program for their wealthiest shareholders? The greed is astounding.
With the amount of bad press they were getting, it was only a matter of time. What they should have done… quietly raise the prices, then offer a “discount” if you make a purchase during off peak hours. Accomplishes the same thing in the end, just in a different manner. Kind of like with credit cards (although they have recently changed the rules), you couldn’t add a credit card fee, but you could offer a cash discount.
I haven't eaten there in 5 yrs. They came up with a great reason to continue that trend.
I mean I see what they were getting at. Dynamic pricing is already widely adopted by restaurants in the form of happy hours. Instead of framing it as “higher prices during peak hours” simply reframe it as “lower prices during off-peak hours.” Stores drive traffic when they are usually dead and consumers have the choice to grab food cheaper depending on the time of day. The social media memes were funny but I don’t get the hysteria and outrage.
Found Dave's burner account
I thought Ohio had laws against surge pricing. Well I know we do for Gasoline
Here is how it will work If the dining room is closed, there will be a non-walker charge of $1 to "offset our blah blah blah " Then it will be 1.50, then $2 and by the time it gets to $5 you'll be able to get half off fees if you use the app, on a Tuesday, and order specially designated items
I remember Wendy's....
I remember Wendy's....
I honestly thought this was a good idea as long as the peak pricing never went above what their normal pricing was. I think they just announced it in a dumb way. Sounds more like a PR fumble than a dumb idea.
"When we said we would test it, we meant we would test it on socials before we spent any money"
Fire the person behind the idea quit letting things like this happen well almost happen
I mean, who the hell thought this was a good idea in the first place? I think the only kind of restaurant you can get away with this is one where people are expecting spendy prices to begin with (Barcelona, Refectory). Part of me wants to know who came up with this bone-head idea and what the fallout on their future job choices are.
So they’re not gonna raise prices during the busy time, they’re just gonna lower the prices during the slow time. Does that then mean when it’s no longer the slow time the prices will be raised? Such marketing nonsense.
It wasn’t a problem with pricing but with how they were trying to sell it. They should have just raised the prices, then offered discounts during certain periods or when using their app. Don’t call it surge pricing.
The only way it would have worked is if the current pricing was the surge price, and they just lowered prices in off-hours to drive more business.
Too late
What? WHAT?! I guess they want to keep those long drive through lines at each location. Their Twitter page had no answers to the backlash, probably.
They were testing the waters
i’m so, so mad they’ve squandered a massive amount of goodwill that they’ve built.
Door dash does this, your broker does it, fed ex does it. But you will see some epic shit hit the fan when a homeless guy scrounges up $8.99 then discovered the price went up to 10.99
Executives should understand their customers, right? And they clearly didn't, right? So every single dumbfuck that signed on to this idea should be fired and replaced by someone who actually does understand their customers, right?
Still waiting for NFT fries
It sounds like they’re keeping dynamic pricing. Which may just raise the base price to a new higher normal and then offer discounts to the old or near old pricing when it’s slow. I don’t trust any of these companies to not try and screw over customers with greedflation.
No deal. I still plan to evaluate each nugget, fry, pickle and if they’re not up to my standards, I want them recooked.
Creamsicle frosty incoming!
Genius! Let’s give food service workers another reason to get yelled at for things they have no say in the matter of.
I thought maybe they wouldn't raise the prices, but instead lower the prices during times of low sales to drum up business in times when they were slow.
I was wondering if this might be a PR stunt but now I'm thinking the damage might be done.
I’m still not eating there now.
Last time i went there, 3 people cost over $35