THE subtle tactics restaurants use to get customers to spend more have been revealed.
It may surprise you, but even the music playing in the background can impact the price of your bill at the end of the meal.
Restaurants have many more ways to upsell items.[/caption]
Up-tempo beats influence you to eat and beat it, while slower jams compel customers to stay longer and spend more money, according to The New York Post.
And while a restaurant’s ambiance might lure in clientele, it’s far from the most profitable tactic for keeping the money rolling in.
The devil is in the details: everything from menu layouts to the average time it takes to order the item you’re convinced you crave the most.
MENUS MATTER WHEN IT COMES TO BIG BUCKS
The seconds you spend choosing what you want from a restaurant menu to the way that menu is designed go hand-in-hand.
“Most people decide what to order in under 90 seconds,” Proxy Coupon’s CEO, Fred Harrington, told Yahoo!.
“Restaurants know this—and they’ve designed their menus to capitalize on that snap decision-making,” he added.
This pressure can push restaurant-goers to lean into their impulses, and in turn, spending more than they initially bargained for.
Even something as subtle as removing the dollar sign from a menu price tag, leaving a standalone numeric value, can nudge diners to shell out more cash.
Those aren’t the only ways a menu design can influence decision-making.
“Restaurants should always remember a menu is a form of advertising,” noted Dr. Jason Buhle, a psychology lecturer at USC, while speaking with Delish.
Minimalism, elegant but simplified fonts, and putting the priciest dishes at the top work wonders for restaurant revenue.
Any of those strategies will likely result in the same endgame: more money for servers and restaurant workers.
OTHER TACTICS RESTAURANTS USE
Plenty of other factors can influence how a customer spends cash.
One of the best examples is what’s known as “market price” menu listings, sometimes referred to as “MKT” for short.
Considered seasonal or on-menu for a limited time, these selections rarely come with a price tag attached.
Top tips from a restaurant insider
Here are some other things to keep in mind while dining out
- Dimming the lights can totally change the vibes at a restaurant – and it doesn’t always depend on the time of day.
- The more uncomfortable the seating options are, the less inclined you’ll be to stay there longer.
- On the flip side, sitting at a booth will likely increase the time you’ll spend at a dining establishment.
Source: The US Sun.
Unfortunately, this can result in customers paying way more than they intended – even as much as hundreds of dollars over their personal budgets.
MKTs aside, even the way food items are arranged or organized on a menu can influence the way customers spend their dollars.
A common practice for restaurants is to list one item as astronomically expensive.
In turn, this gives the impression that the rest of the menu fare is much more reasonably priced, according to The Post.
Even if the eatery your bucks are going to isn’t considered haute cuisine, the humblest of diners and dives have their own charming tricks: the fuller a tip jar is, the more likely you’ll add a dollar or two to it.
