Coffee Machines, Catering Supplies & Equipment

Power to Your Menu!

The psychology of your menu pricing – Does it matter?

Power to Your Menu! Recent research suggests that it encourages customers to spend more when you do not display the £ symbol in your menu prices.

Why? Well, it seems that the removal of the pound sign takes away the “actual” or apparent cost of the item, be that a dish or a coffee. It gives a feeling of not using real money when the pound sign is not there.

The following techniques also encourage higher spending when your customers study your menu:-

  • The inclusion of a few expensive dishes on your list can make your other choices look like a better buy.
  • End with .95 in your pricing. For instance, pricing a Panini at 7.95, rather than £8.00 seems less expensive to many people even though the difference is marginal. Similarly it is better not to use .99 as an ending in pricing because it is likely to cheapen your offering.
  • There is also an area on your menu that marketers refer to as “the golden triangle”. For instance, eyes usually focus first on the middle of the page before going to the top right corner and then finishing at the top left.
  • Designers consider this as the ‘Golden Triangle’ and recommend that you use these three areas to display your most profitable dishes.
  • Colours on a menu can also have an affect! Green is suggestive of fresh whereas orange whets the appetite. Yellow implies happiness, and is therefore a good attention grabber. Red is the action colour and used to encourage a buying decision so it is best to use it on items with the highest profit margins.
  • Making frequent menu changes can become quite expensive, so we have added a link to a low-cost company called Vistaprint. Their service is relatively inexpensive however they are not altogether charitable because the method they use requires that you enter all the content.
  • Typesetting is a big part of the cost in a print-house, but you put in the final content and therein lies the danger because what you provide is supplied in the final print.
  • Accuracy is, therefore, critical and the best way to make sure the content is correct is to read it letter by letter before submission. It involves one person reading each letter out loud while a second person carefully checks the copy. It sounds onerous, but can be quite quick once you get going.

Your menu is a dominant part of your marketing. Considering these techniques in your design should repay you with increased profit.

Vistaprint

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