Defenestrating Thoughts from the Bivouac

We were at Panera the other day for dinner and noticed something new. Normally if you don’t get a drink, they will ask, “Would you like a drink?” This is pretty standard everywhere, since people like drinks and they are very profitable for the restaurant. This time though, after asking about a drink, they asked, “Do you want to add a cookie for 99 cents more?”

Apparently they just started this strategy to move the rest of the their baked goods at the end of the day. And for now, they are only asking some people.

This is a great use of upsell (the art of getting the customer to buy more than they originally intended). The usual examples of upsell is, “Do you want to get an extended warranty?” or “Do you want clear coat on your new car?” For both of these , people generally know that the correct answer is “NO!”.

But a really, really good cookie for 99 cents? How could you say no? Crissy and I specifically don’t buy any of the cookies or pastries from Panera because we’re trying to eat healthy. But we gave in to the wonderful chocolatey goodness. We’re bad, we know.

Just how bad were we? I checked the Panera nutritional info. And I found out that the Chocolate Duet cookies has 400 calories and 22 grams of fat. The pizza I had, as a comparison, has 340 calories and 15 grams of fat.

If you remember from last time we talked about restaurant nutritional info, a McDonald’s double cheeseburger has 440 calories and 23 grams of fat.

So next time you’re at Panera and they ask, “Do you want to add a cookie for 99 cents more?”, ask yourself, “Do I want a double cheeseburger in additional to the rest of the food I ordered?” :-)