McDonald’s is fighting back against viral tweets and media reports that it says have exaggerated its price increases.
In a post on the company’s website Wednesday, McDonald’s U.S. President Joe Erlinger said reports suggesting the price of the average Big Mac has doubled since 2019 were false. McDonald’s said the average U.S. Big Mac was $4.39 in 2019 and now costs $5.29, a 20.5% increase.
Erlinger acknowledged that he and many franchisees were frustrated by a post on X last summer about a Big Mac meal in Connecticut that cost $18, calling the price “an exception.”
McDonald’s saw a marked slowdown in store traffic in the first three months of this year as inflation-weary customers in the U.S. and other big markets ate out less often.
“It’s clear that we — together with our franchisees — must remain laser-focused on value and affordability,” Erlinger said.
Motherfucker acting like the price increases are modest while charging 3.29 for a fucking Hash Brown. I get it, your customers eat McDonald’s so it’s easy to assume they’re stupid, but you can be pretty fucking stupid and still realize that the total price of your meal is ridiculous.
They also ditched the $1 any size drink pricing.
When they dropped the $1 iced tea, I knew shit got real.
Meanwhile McDonald’s CEO was paid $19.2mm last year, which was 8% higher than the year before that.
I never go to McDonalds without using a code from the app. $2 breakfast sandwich? Cool. 20% off entire order? Cool. It’s gotten to the point that using the app is necessary to get reasonably priced food. Without it, you’re overpaying.
A situation specifically engineered to get people downloading their app and forking over tracking data.
And waiving their rights to join a class action lawsuit against McDonald’s, don’t forget that :D
Shelter or Island if you use Android. Let’s you install the apps in a separate profile, and have them effectively disabled when not in use.
Ooh, that’s good to know about. I’ve been meaning to look into ways to do just that for a while now. Thanks!
Exactly. I guess at this point, I’m ok with some certain datapoints being collected. Mostly what they’ll get from me is that I occasionally like a Sausage Egg McMuffin on my way to work. lol
Any clue what permissions the app asks for?
Location, Camera/photos, ( I assume for something like QR scanning), notification, audio.
Yeah no way am I paying $4.50 for a single double cheeseburger but with a 2 for 1 deal it’s worth it.
Same with taco bell. There is a build your own box combo for $6 on the app that has two main items, a side item, and a drink. The same combo purchased in store is $12.
They’re trading out low-value customers for high-value customers. It’s Business 101. I’ve done it with my old PC repair gig.
For the same revenue, do you want a bunch of people paying low prices or a few people paying high prices?
In any case, I’m all for higher fast-food prices. Maybe this will drive a culture shift towards healthier, less fattening food.
The problem with that logic is that McDonalds has not upped the value of their product. I didn’t take Business 101, but I’m pretty sure it’d be considered bad business to try and sell the same piece of shit you’ve always sold for a higher price than you typically sell for.
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It’s a safe assumption to make that the customers bearing the high prices are largely only doing so because they go to mcdonalds out of habit. Eventually they’ll shake out of that habit and mcdonalds will be left with dropping revenues, which is what we’re starting to see now. If mcdonalds wants high-value customers, then they’d have to offer high-value products and services, but they do neither.
Business 101 would be identifying an under-served customer base and appealing to them. What mcdonalds is doing is just squeezing their existing customers outside of the base that mcdonalds is known for (wanting cheap and convenient food). It works until the customers stop coming, then mcdonalds has to work twice as hard to get them back because those customers have moved onto other restaurants which they’ve found out offer better products and services and/or better prices.
McDonald’s business model isn’t that, though. They’re a volume business. They want to cut costs and sell as many as they can. They can’t really compete against the “fast casual” segment on quality.
