Sneaky Ways Fast Food Restaurants Get You To Spend Money

This is McDonald's number 3: burger, fries and drink. It costs $11 in New York City. Fast

food

is supposed to be cheap and convenient, but have you ever found yourself

spend

ing more on

fast

food

than you expected? You're not alone. According to one study, Americans

spend

about $1,200 on

fast

food each year. Places like McDonald's and Burger King do everything in their power to get you to spend more

money

, and it turns out fast food isn't as cheap as you think. Fast food is all about deals. Cheap meals, combos, coupons, oh my! But the seemingly simple menu actually hides most of the options.

Compare a fast food menu to a fine dining restaurant menu. The restaurant menu is simple and not very stimulating, but the fast food menu is a noisy mess of options and categories, and fast food

restaurants

catch your attention with bright reds or oranges along with large, appetizing photographs of their food. There is a hierarchy. The images are big, but the prices are small. They keep your attention on the items that cost the most by displaying them really big on the left side where you start reading. You're not wondering if that burger is worth $6, you're just looking at those big, juicy burgers.

Hans Taparia: Images of food light up the brain, especially when you are hungry. Large food boxes for a food company are key. Narrator: That's Hans Taparia. He is a health food entrepreneur and professor of business and society at New York University. Hans Taparia: The playbook has been around for a while, I would say since the '80s, and it has focused on simplicity, cheap, bold and bright. Narrator: Fast food

restaurants

also use other tricks, such as not showing the dollar sign or using a 9.79 or 0.89 price format. Almost $10, but you still think it's $9 because you read from left to right.

But what about the dollar menu, right? Well, dollar and value menus do exist, but they are often small and tucked away in a corner where they are harder to see. Hans Taparia: And if you buy several items from the value menu, it won't necessarily be cheaper than a Happy Meal. So it's not necessarily less profitable for them, but it does two things. It keeps the consumer coming back and serves a consumer who is increasingly poorer in the case of these conventional fast food establishments. Narrator: And although fast food menus are large, their confusing layouts make it difficult to find exactly what you're looking for.

It's easier to read the menu when you're near the counter. But then it's time to order. The pressure builds and you just go for that big, shiny, juicy number 3, and that number 3 is where the real secret of the menu lies: the combo. The star of the menu is the combination menu. You can order a main dish, a side and a drink just by saying a simple number. It takes a lot less time to order the Number 6 than a 10-piece nugget, a medium fry, and a medium drink, but have you really done the math to see if that combination saves you

money

?

Take McDonald's for example. If you buy a Number 3, it costs $10.39, but if you buy the Double Quarter Pounder, medium fry and medium drink, it costs $10.48. You're only saving 9 cents and you'll often end up with things you didn't even want in much larger portions than is healthy. Hans Taparia: And by creating this perception, which is actually quite real, that the cost per ounce of something larger is less, so I get better value for my money, I forget the fact that I'm buying 32 ounces of soda. , which has half a cup of sugar. Narrator: The convenience of ordering a preselected meal gives fast food restaurants control over what you order.

Combine this with multiple size options and affordable upgrades, and it'll be hard to go small in every category. When was the last time you went to a place like Taco Bell and bought a taco? Fast food restaurants make more money when customers buy multiple items. Items like soft drinks have a much higher profit margin compared to hamburgers, which is why fast food companies do everything they can to get you to buy a drink. They've added things like 24-hour locations and all-day breakfast to make sure you can get what you want when you want it. If you think you have more control at an ordering kiosk, you're wrong.

According to McDonald's CEO Steve Easterbrook, customers spend more on average at kiosks because they stay longer. Guess what those kiosks have too? Lots and lots of images. And that's just the tip of, um, Frosty. Fast food companies are experts at attracting customers. They advertise the most outrageous deals on billboards, billboards and television commercials. They can take you to the door to buy some free nuggets and probably buy a drink too. Oh look. You can make a meal and add fries for just a dollar more. Companies also use brand links like Doritos Locos Tacos and coupons that expire in a week, like the ones you may have seen at the bottom of your receipt, not to mention the app rewards points or daily specials found only in the app, only like the old punch card.

You'll eat at a restaurant more often if every purchase gets you closer to free food. Anything in isolation may not have a big impact. The power of marketing is in the layering of things. Narrator: But there is a deeper problem here. Fast food is not as cheap as it used to be. According to Bloomberg, the average price of a fast-food burger has increased 54% in the last decade, outpacing fast-casual and fine-dining restaurants. But fast food is sometimes the only option in low-income food deserts, and environment has a big impact on health and weight. Healthy fast-casual offerings are typically much more expensive than fast food and no longer target the same demographic, especially if you're trying to feed a family.

KFC will give you a lot more food per dollar than an organic salad chain. Fast food restaurants may encourage consumers to spend more money on large, unhealthy portions because they are more affordable than healthier options. Fast food may be cheap and convenient, but you must fight all the psychological tricks designed to make you spend more money. You shouldn't pay more for unhealthy, low-quality food.