Welcome to the wonderful world of things you should never do. I have always advised that one should NEVER discount the price of their pizzas as a promotion. Instead, keep the price right where it is, and bundle it with something, like a free soft drink, breadsticks, dessert, etc. This way your customers will never lose perspective of the cost of your pizzas. Think of it like this, yesterday a customer bought a medium or large pizza and paid full price for it and also got a free order of this or that, today they come in and buy the same pizza, for the same money, but you don’t get the free order of this or that with it like you did yesterday. The customer may kick themselves for not ordering an extra pizza yesterday, but they won’t be p o’d. A good example of this is what I use to pick up sales on Monday nights. With any dine-in purchase of a medium or large pizza, receive a free pitcher of soft drink. They still pay full price for the pizza, but they get a $2.50 or $3.00 free-bee with their meal. Best part is that your actual cost is what? Maybe $0.50? And better yet, no disallusioned customers after the promotion. There are many better marketing guys than me, but this has always been my approach when going up against discounted and “two-fer” pizza.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
