Cashing in on the algorithm — It’s not just pubs toying with dynamic pricing. It’s already here in sectors ranging from public transport to ecommerce::Pub chain pours itself a full measureLast week, Britain’s largest pub group, Stonegate, declared that it would be charging 20p more per pint during peak hours at about 800 of its venues. The chain said the measures were necessary to offset increased costs on staffing and security. For some onlookers
Isn’t this the principle of happy hours? I guess “algorithm-enforced beverage price dissymmetry” is a bit more ominous than “happy hour”
I suppose, except happy hour gives it a bit more of a positive spin. People like getting discount way more than having to pay more. They could’ve definitely handled this one better.
Also, having people pay more at peak hours is potentially going to shift when people start drinking. Day drinkers will most likely become more common that way.
Dynamic pricing works for transport because people have little choice about when to travel, especially commuters. So you get cheaper pricing when there’s less demand without everyone shifting their travel plans to save money.
Not sure if it’ll work in a pub. I’ll just go to a different one, or go at a different time… there’s no lock in, so dynamic pricing could actually cost the chain money as at the busiest times people simply go elsewhere… and once you’ve lost the ‘habit’ of going to a place it’s much harder for them to persuade you to go back.
We’re talking 20p per pour. Is that much of a mark up, by percent?
I’m in/near a major US city and just paid $12 per pour on Saturday during morning premiere league games.
The drinks were mixed drinks, but the $ is still the thing. The beers would have been cheaper…
With an average of £4.21, an increase of 20p is ~5% increase. That goes up the cheaper the beer and down the more expensive.
Speaking for myself, I wouldn’t notice a 5% increase on things I did infrequently. My monthly budget would get out of whack pretty fast for 5% increases on frequent items. The standard Netflix subscription in the UK costs £10.99 or 55 pints with the addition.
A bar I used to live near made a whole theme around this to get more people to the bar. All the prices were on a big screen, and it kind of worked like the stock market. Beers selling well would go up in price, beers selling poorly would go down in price, all in real-time. So as a customer you could pretty much name your price, if you were cool drinking whatever or trying new stuff. If the beer you wanted was more than you wanted to pay, simply wait a bit for the price to cool down and then go get it.
It was a bit of a gimmick, but kind of fun.
That does sounds kind of fun. Are they still around and doing this?
Yep. It’s called the Beer Exchange. It looks like there are two of them now. One in Kalamazoo and another in Detroit.
Thanks. Next time I’m near there.
Oh I love that idea
Link without paywall: https://archive.ph/rs9qQ
Is this better than 12ft ladder? Just wondering.
I have very limited experience with 12ft ladder, I tried it a couple times and never worked for the articles I wanted to read.
Archive.today has a very different way to bypass paywalls that makes it more effective: while 12ft ladder tries to pass as Google’s crawler to see the article, Archive.today makes use of paying accounts credentials plus a botnet to avoid being blocked: https://gyrovague.com/2023/08/05/archive-today-on-the-trail-of-the-mysterious-guerrilla-archivist-of-the-internet/
Much appreciated on the additional details. Thanks for that!
