Comment by gffrd
3 hours ago
Could see this being useful for people who are on the road for a living, or regularly operating in areas where they’re not familiar with the offerings. Truck drivers, salespeople, etc.
That said, kneejerk after using it is: price is a challenging anchor, because food is not uniform. I’d be curious if users are more interested in “under $10, ignoring all else” or “a better deal than comparable” - though, there’s a lot of subjectivity in that.
Gasbuddy works because 1 gallon of gas = 1 gallon of gas, so price is a useful anchor.
$5 for sushi at one place could be a bad deal, while a great deal at another place.
An $8 steak would be cheap. An $8 hot dog would be a ripoff.
I’d be skeptical of restaurants luring people with a single cheap item, or about quality/portion changes.
All this said, Ikea is known for designing furniture _around_ the price their target customer thinks a table should cost. Restaurants are likely (hopefully!) aware of where these price thresholds are for their customers … and your site could be an interesting way of sending them a different type of customer than they’d historically targeted. Or, allow them to refine an offering to maximize profit at the $10 price point.
As others have said, engage restaurants and make them part of the equation. They’re not your adversary.
In short: cool! Do lots of experiments and research!
Thank you so much gffrd.
You know, my dream is to have some kind of movement where people rally to fight inflation and tipflation. Last few years, we seen some crazy food price increases and it seems like its gonna get worse.
If enough people find value in affortable prices, and people go to those restaurants that offer good deals, either as lunch special or weekly promotion, more restaurant will try to offer these kind of deals. Win for customers, win for restuarant.
Might be getting a head of myself there.. but that's the vision. (If you check "About" page, I put another dream which is to make this website turn non-profit later down the road if we make money lol)
To really stop inflation, the fed would have to ramp up interest rates, stop printing money, and Congress would have to cut spending and raise taxes. It's worth it to reward businesses who offer cheap prices, but inflation is inevitable without severe austerity measures.