I was at work one Friday night when I get the idea for my econ blog. I have worked at Donatos pizza (not at the ones on or near campus) for about 3 and a half years now and have obviously gotten to know the regular customers. One customer in particular is a man named Mr. Burwell. Mr. Burwell comes in every Friday night and orders two large pizzas. About two years ago we had this half price deal where if you buy one large pizza you get another large at half price. Well as most specials do, the special ended but Mr. Burwell was not happy about it one bit. So in order to make him happy since he’s come there for years my manager has us put in a special coupon just for him so he still gets one of the larges for half price. Any other customer must have their coupons in order to get a reduced price on something…but not Mr. Burwell. I realized after learning about price discrimination that that was exactly what we were doing with Mr. Burwell. I also remembered Kyle saying that even if the prices rise it won’t really stop too many customers from coming back. If we just would have put our foots down and told him that specials end and that he must pay the full price then we wouldn’t be in this situation now…which is us price discriminating every Friday because we thought we would lose his business.
April Allen
Econ 200, 8:00
Wow, that is kinda interesting. I know that back home, the one hair salon in town is owned by one of the ladies I know and she won't let certain people pay full price or pay at all when she is the only one in the shop. Every time I go home and visit her and try to pay to get my hair cut or my nails done she won't let me, now that is what I call extreem price discrimination. But I find it kinda cool that your manager decided to let you guys give this man a discount because he has been a loyal customer and did not want to lose him.
ReplyDeleteIt's so funny how loyal customers get special treatment practically EVERYWHERE. I worked at a restaurant for 3 years before I came to college. We always had our "loyal customers" the ones that were sweet, always tipped well, and were always friendly to all the workers. BUT there is this one family that came in on sundays, at 1:00 for lunch. Every weekend, they were a sure thing... we even had bets on what time they would walk in the door down to the minute. The only thing about these "loyal" customers is that they were a pain in the a$$!! Their food was never right supposedly, and when they complained our manager just gave them 15% off without even going over and looking at their food. This happened every weekend and due to their constant complaining we automatically took 15% off of their check. Soon after about 2 years of this shenanigan going on I started to notice that they stopped complaining about their food and our manager automatically kept taking 15% off their check!!! I laughed at this, so when I approached my manager about them not complaining anymore we decided to take the 15% discount off. THAT day we decided to not take 15% off of their check... they complained.... about not having the 15% discount. They were so used to getting it, so when they started to complain again we gave them the discount... so the ironic part about this is that this family is loyal customers... due to the price discrimination of their complaining about not getting a discount from getting the discount for their "messed up" food... a little confusing... its just funny how people are and will do anything for a discount.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of pizza, Morgan is right, people will do ANYTHING for a discount. I was fortunate enough to work at Papa Johns on 23 cent pizza day. Thats right we were selling large pizzas for 23 cents to anyone who wanted one. This was probably one of the most hilarious days of my life. I had to get dropped off because the tiny area that we had to park was taken over by police cars. As I walked out of my mothers car, I saw a line of people that seemed to stretch out from the doors of our tiny little pizza place to infinity and beyond. When I finally got inside I learned that the lines were 2 to 3 hours long. I never knew that the demand for pizza was so high. Yes twenty three cents for a large pizza is a really good deal, but is it really worth standing in a three hour line for people? apparently it is.
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