it's a scam this will not stand fast
food restaurants are more known for
things like convenience and value menus
than they are for the quality of their
food this is not an accident because in
the competitive fast-food game making
money is about the little things like
charging for extras and upselling the
bigger size time to find out 10 sneaky
ways fast food restaurants scam us that
sounds like a scam less is more
give me one more hope in the competitive
world of fast food chains every little
thing counts and can be the difference
between turning a profit or going out of
business the more successful restaurant
chains have discovered that offering
customers a relatively limited choice of
menu items is cost-effective in an out
Burger has mastered this model offering
its loyal customers burgers french fries
and a variety of soft drinks they're
just given them away beyond the in and
out within this limited menu there are a
few variations such as cheese burgers
and milkshakes although in and out is a
great example most of the fast-food
chains use this system to varying
degrees
for example potatoes are cheap so it
makes sense to offer their customers
only french fries instead of a selection
of side dishes that are more expensive
to mass-produce the lower the
restaurants can keep their costs the
greater their potential profit margin
can be if a chain like McDonald's were
to offer pizza
McDonald's tried this briefly and failed
and Mexican food like burritos and
enchiladas it would be a mistake it
would greatly increase the restaurants
costs of producing menu items and these
increased costs would eventually be
passed on to customers please don't do
that
supersizing profits okay you can
supersize but no apple pie do you need
that extra giant soda that would satisfy
a team of thirsty kids no but for a few
cents more it can easily be yours so why
not get it this pop psychology is the
basic idea behind the efforts of
fast-food chains to upsell you more food
than you need for more money than you
were intending to spend the fast-food
companies even conducted a study that
showed that the overwhelming number of
people who are asked if they want fries
with that answer
yes have you learned how to say do you
want fries with that this is why the
employees are trained to ask you this
and also to ask you if you would rather
have the larger size for just a few
cents more you're already spending X
amount of money so why not a bit more
these few cents are actually a lot to
the food chains think of all the
transactions that go on at these
restaurants every single day if they can
get each customer to spend just a few
cents more to get the bigger size then
this adds up to a lot of money this
concept also applies to combos too you
might have showed up intending to just
get a sandwich but for a little more
money you ended up driving away with a
meal deal with fries and a drink and the
company ended up with more money in its
pocket well don't get too clever for me
clip and save I don't have any money
this coupon many of us have grown up
believing that using coupons to purchase
items is a smart idea because these
little slips of paper save us money but
is this really true the answer is a
little more complicated than you'd think
there is no shortage of fast food
coupons available for you to use they
are in magazines advertisements you get
in the mail and on the internet they are
so prevalent it almost has to make you
ask what gives with all the coupons it
turns out the fast food chains consider
the coupons to be like a form of bait
miss Menken coupons work this bait will
get you in the door and maybe you will
just get what the coupon allows for but
it is very likely you will end up
spending more than you intended when you
clipped the coupon the coupons are not
about saving you money but simply
getting you to spend money you were not
necessarily intending to spend on fast
food even the coveted free item coupons
are really a ploy to get you to spend
more money so the fast food chains will
continue to offer us coupons as long as
the coupons helped them make more money
what are you looking for else rebate
coupons the invaluable menu what's on
the menu today good sir most of the
value menus you see being pushed by the
fast food companies play a similar role
that the coupons play they are more of a
marketing ploy than a moneymaker for the
food chains for example dollar menu
items don't usually make money for them
but they are
being that customers will be lured by
the cheap items featured on the value
menu but end up ordering more expensive
items these fast food chains can't
survive if you just get a hamburger off
the value menu they really need you to
get inspired to order a full meal with a
drink and french fries and get talked
into buying the bigger size while you're
at it but many of the fast-food chains
have said they would like to get rid of
their value menus but our concerns that
they would have more trouble luring
customers in to spend any money they see
these menus as a necessary evil or a
cost of doing business and the highly
competitive fast food market as for the
customers if they do stick to the items
on the value menu they can get a decent
amount of food for a pretty cheap price
however the companies continue to work
hard to get these customers to spend
more than they intended huge get out get
out easy does it
why don't you go relax we'll bring us
some takeout one of the major reasons
fast food chains have thrived over the
years is that they are convenient think
about when you go on a road trip how far
can you ever get from a mcdonald's or
some other major fast-food chain being
there whenever you want them is a major
strength and they have been smart and
exploiting this fact over the years
these giant corporations would all like
to believe that customers love the food
so much that they will go out of their
way for a hamburger or a shake and
sometimes we do but they have faced the
fact that being user-friendly or being
available on demand is a big part of
their business model you might say that
these companies have decided to make a
necessity into a virtue this convenience
has paid off because more than nine
million Americans find their way to a
fast food restaurant every day that so
many people and many of these people
visit fast food restaurants more than
once a week it might stand to reason
that they don't actually love the
mass-produced food as much as the
companies would like to believe what
they do love is how easy and quick it is
to use the drive-through to get a quick
and hopefully inexpensive meal the other
factor to keep in mind is that most
people don't like to cook all the time
and fast food restaurants are an easy
option to choose when you'll likely pass
several of them on the way home from
work
how convenient the business of fast food
let's talk business there is a
well-known statistic that is often
repeated about restaurants according to
the numbers more than half of new
restaurants go out of business
most of these were small-scale
operations that tried to go it alone in
a crowded and highly competitive
industry the saying goes there is safety
in numbers and this really seems to be
the case when it comes to fast food
restaurants the fast food franchises
like McDonald's and Burger King are
internationally recognized global brands
so it's a wonder that any of these
so-called mom-and-pop establishments can
survive well know how can I compete with
that these fast food chains use their
resources to undercut the competition
and use huge marketing budgets to secure
a continuous presence in the marketplace
that is difficult to ignore these big
corporations can wait out the smaller
competition that can't afford to match
dollar menus and other gimmicks that
actually don't make any money but can
expand the customer base for the big
chains they are good at business and
they have had decades to refine their
techniques that get you inside their
stores to spend money on a regular basis
oh how did I spend that much money fast
food wages what's she gonna make minimum
wage at best everyone knows you are not
going to get rich working at a fast food
restaurant
hiring employees as inexpensively as
they can is actually part of their
formula for success mostly these chains
rely on teenagers who are entering the
job market with limited skills and
looking for their first job the kids get
training experience and a paycheck and
the companies are able to pay them less
than they would be pressured to pay
older more experienced workers in recent
years many workers have been complaining
about the relatively low wages and have
started demanding a higher minimum wage
sometimes as high as $20 an hour while
this sounds good to the employees it
doesn't make sense to the fast food
companies who are used to drawing from a
big pool of young low-skilled workers
the companies argue that paying
employees substantially higher wages
would mean fewer jobs or passing the
higher labor costs on to the customers
rather than cutting the higher wages of
the upper echelon within the companies
rich get rich but as computers and
artificial intelligence continue to get
more sophisticated there's the potential
that many fast food jobs could soon be
replaced by robots who work without pay
and won't complain about it I think it's
wrong to replacing men with mindless
machine nickel-and-dime if they got a
dime I want at least a nickel it's an
old adage that it's the little things
that count and this certainly seems to
be true when it comes to the big
fast-food companies these companies do
not charge for things like straws and
napkins but they do charge extra for a
lot of little things like sauces and
condiments
like salsa and guacamole many of these
chains will also charge extra for things
like cheese as well as for certain
substitutions condiments are generally
very cheap for these companies to
produce and the fast food chains often
charge more than a dollar for each of
them we stopped believing those people
dry and go home
much like with the fast food chains
reliance on the profitability of their
soft drinks these little extras add up
to a lot of profits the fast food
companies assume since you're already at
the restaurant you're okay with spending
some money and you probably won't notice
if you have to spend a few more dollars
to get all the little extras you want it
is strange to think that the viability
of these multi-billion dollar
corporations rests with whether or not
customers are willing to pay extra money
for things like sauces and dips it's a
little things in the soft target keep
the targets soft pull the trigger slow
after burgers and french fries fountain
sodas are the items we most associate
with fast food restaurants it turns out
this is probably not an accident as
these cheap and easy to make fountain
soft drinks are big moneymakers for
these corporations it only costs a
couple of pennies to mix up these sweet
concoctions of carbonated water and
flavoring and then fast food chains can
turn around and sell that very
concoction for a dollar or more sounds
like a scam this big discrepancy can
work out to as much as a 90% profit on
their soft drinks so there is little
wonder why these companies are always
pushing you to get a drink with your
meal it's almost pure profit including a
soft drink in a so-called value meal
cost the chains almost nothing the large
profits they make on the saw
drinks allow them to charge prices on
the value menus that don't really turn a
profit because they know they're going
to make all the money back and more with
the soda sales however there might be
trouble on the horizon because many
customers have been trying to cut out
soda in an effort to be healthier and
this is put a crimp in the fast food
chains profits in recent years gotta eat
healthy to stay fit show me a dream
dream big these fast food companies have
not become internationally successful by
selling you the cheapest items on their
menu the fast food restaurants advertise
the more expensive meals on their menus
with colorful pictures of big juicy
burgers and crisp gold and french fries
mmm now you're making me hungry if you
only have a couple of bucks in your
pocket when you roll up to the
drive-through it'll be a lot easier to
stick to the value menu and be done with
it
however these are not the type of
customers they have built their business
on for decades
all of these fast-food chains have a
pile of studies that show them that if
you have more to spend they have a good
chance of getting you to spend it at
their restaurant devious little monsters
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