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If you’ve taken advantage of ride-sharing apps, you’re likely familiar with the concept of “surge pricing,” but it appears that divisive approach could be coming to a fast food chain with thousands of locations courtesy of Wendy’s.
The concept of supply and demand is one of the most elementary aspects of economics, and while consumers are impacted by the related swings in pricing on a regular basis, you’re usually not going to see them updated in real time.
With that said, there are some exceptions to that general rule, and it’s hard to think of a more visible example than the surge pricing companies like Uber and Lyft use to maximize profits (and, depending on how you look at things, gouge customers) when demand is at its peak.
There are also some gimmicky bars out there that harness a similar philosophy by drawing inspiration from the stock market and boasting a menu of constantly fluctuating prices that reflect the interest for particular items—an approach the folks at Wendy’s are apparently on the verge of adopting.
According to The New York Post, Wendy’s CEO Kirk Tanner recently devoted a portion of an investors’ call to discussing a test the fast food chain is planning to conduct in order to test the viability of surge pricing (also known as “dynamic pricing”) at the approximately 6,000 locations it boasts in the United States.
The outlet says Tanner used the Dave’s Single (Wendy’s quarter-pound burger option) to highlight how the experiment may work, suggesting the price of that particular item could go up by as much as $1 during peak lunch and dinner hours and have the increase reflected in the digital menus the company will use to constantly update the exact cost.
It’s hard to imagine many people will be thrilled by the introduction of this tactic, but it’s also kind of surprising it’s taken as long as it has for other companies to get in on the action after the aforementioned apps proved it can be a viable business strategy.