I’m on Day 3 of my 30 day blogging journey.
You can read more about the why HERE.
This story is about “cheeseburgers”, except that it’s not.
I’ve changed the type of food to protect the innocent.
There are three burger joints I like to frequent.
A: Is the one furthest from my business. I like the staff. They’ve historically had the best prices and they serve the least amount of food of the other burger spots. I’ll come back to that distinction later.
B: Is closer to my business. I also like their staff. Their prices are higher than A, but they also serve more food in their orders.
C: Is geographically the closest to my business. The staff is very nice. They have the highest prices and they serve the most food of the three establishments.
If I’m REALLY hungry and I’m not terribly concerned about what I’m spending, I’ll go to C, even though it’s the most convenient place for me to get to.
I’ll go to B when I want a change of pace and I’m hungry but not feeling famished.
To be honest, I really like going to A because I never leave there stuffed to the gills.
However, recently A changed their prices and now they are roughly the same price as the other two places with no change to the quantity of food.
So, that makes me think harder about where I want to dine.
All three restaurants are local, mom-&-pop places. They aren’t chains.
And this makes me wonder why we become patrons of a business.
Is it because they’re the least expensive or because they’re the best?
Is it because of a personal connection or is there no personal connection?
If I buy a used book from Amazon because it’s a fraction of the cost of a new one, I’m not buying it because I have a great relationship with Jeff Bezos. It’s because I value the ability to buy a gently used book for $5 when the new one is $25 and, I own a LOT of books.
However, we buy things (products or services) for a lot of reasons: convenience, price, quality, scarcity (one of my personal vulnerabilities), relationship with the business/staff, and even for status.
And I know that, as I write this blog, everyone is raising their prices.
I haven’t followed suit yet for my brick-and-mortar business. My prices have been the same for the last 6 or so years.
My only solution (which many would disagree on) is to add more clients, which, in my defense, has worked pretty well.
I can’t say whether A should have raised their prices or not. I don’t see how they operate their business and what their overhead costs are. I do know that most restaurants have very small profit margins to work within and, it could be simply that the cost of goods for A’s food has gone up and they need to be able to make a living.
It also raises another question for me: Should A’s prices have been higher all along? Is it harder to go back there knowing that nothing else is changing with the food and it’s still the furthest path for me to travel?
What I do know is that very few of us buy completely through rationale. We buy through emotion, correctly or incorrectly.
How about you?
Whose cheeseburger would you be buying…and why?
(Photo courtesy of Amirali Mirhashemian)
