BRANDY marketing idea

[system]

I have never used or really taken interest in the black book so I thought I would start a new thread since I know discussion on the book seems to go crazy.

We opened a second location a few months ago and have been stuggling getting customers to come in, try us and remember we are here (we are kinda off the beaten path).

Anyway we have tried the traditional ways… door hanging seems to help.

One of the chains here offers a 14 for 4.99 every thurs. Carry out only. We decided to give it a try… at both locations. We offered a 16" one topping, carry out only for 5 bucks.

Well first off one of my concerns was de valueing (is that a word?) our pizza. Second was would we actually make any money off it? Third, would it work?

We have done it for 2 thurs so far. First thurs both stores sold about 80.
Last thurs. the new store did 110 and the other store did 165.

Did it de value our pizza? No It brought in tons of new customers. We do it the old fashioned way also, a pos would have told actual new customers but I do know this our 2nd location has been open 12 years and most are regulars while I was cashing out the customers and talking with them many had never eaten there before. (They have built major new subdivisions in past few years and most probably haven’t tried us)

It has been incredible. Our sales the other days have been on a rise. I thought it would hurt friday but didn’t at all. I was worried the amount of pizzas we were doing would compromise our product, it hasn’t.
Our crew has become stronger. Friday night seemed like a breeze after thurs.

At almost 50% food cost we still made our labor percent and food percents for the week. Our labor was actually way under.

So we may have only gained $825 in sales but we sold tons of extras with it. We ran a special on our cheescake and salads (easy and quick and tastes fabulous) many ordered with their pizza. We laughed because they got 2 cheescakes for the price of a pizza.

Our sales for the whole day was up 1500.

I can hardly wait until next week.

Maybe give it a whirl, I know the other places in town have to be feeling the blow. That is a lot of customers.

 

[brandy7279]

Thank you, I was thinking of doing that but heres what else I was thinking. I usually serve 16 for my large. For slices I use 18. Everyone else around here uses 14 for large and some are serving Xlge which I assume are 18s. My 16 1 topping are normally 10.60 tax inc. I was thinking instead of making my large discounted sell a 18 for 9.99. .61 difference that really isnt costing me anything more. It sounds cheap but is really not compared to knocking 5 off a 16. It sounds like yours is doing great. My 16 cost is 5.60 I might be afraid to go that low. Almost could advertise my large as xlge and still be same price as their discount.
FYI- my name is actually Kay- My dog is Brandy but I guess I answer to either!! Thanks for the idea-hope you keep getting great results.
Kay

 

[system]

kay
same with us our large is a 16 and everyone else is a 14. (for a large) and guess what their xl is a 16. Any marketing I do I use 16 or 14 Never do I put large or medium.

One thing I will say is watch the 18… Do you have room in your oven?

Let me know when/if you decide to do it… I will give you some pointers to help you survive cause you are gonna get busy.

 

[brandy7279]

Sorry it took awhile. I use 18 now for pizza by slice. Use screens though- was thinking about buying a few pans to make it easier/less mess. When you adv. do you ever use xlge? (wording) It is something I have been considering mostly because within a month my drive thru will be running and I have already started to having pizza by slice all day, mostly because so many people keep stopping in and asking for just a slice. I am inbetween 2 schools and we usually serve slices for lunch only. Now that I have my window figured might as well go full time with slices. I dont normally serve an 18 and have never tried. If anyone has input on how to keep slices better- Right now I parbake and preheat. They turn out alright, I dont like the way the sauce looks dry though. I use deck oven have 3 decks room is alright unless I got slammed which is a problem I love to have! I think maybe because my medium is 12, I have heard people say, wow they go from a medium to am xlge! Maybe I should serve 14 at same price and have 16 for xlge. It seems like thats what big guys do.

 

[system]

the whole industry has already been “de-valued” people are cheap and thanks to the big 3 and all their damn coupons people seem to think and want to get pizzas for five dollars apiece, it doesn’t matter to them if your pizza is the best in the business, if you use all fresh ingredients and your crew cares enough to put out a good product. All people think about is how cheap can I get this? I miss the good ole days when people were willing to spend money on good food, now… thanks to the big three… those days are nearly gone. People think we should give them the whole store for free. They also have the general conception that restaurant owners are rich and “can afford” to give stuff away.

what a bunch of bs

 

[system]

How did you get the word out on your $5.00 pizza for Thursday? That seems to be my biggest challenge, getting the word out.

Any help would be appreicated.

Ralph

 

[system]

We boxed topped it. If you make one on your computer you can do a 1/2 page and get them for about 2 cents each.

We also do an insert in the paper. (With other coupons too.)

Oddly enough our Manager came in with poster board and a black marker. I wasn’t real sure if it would go over or look trashy but we tried it. We had 2 employees stand on the corner and sure enough it worked. It really worked.

I can’t wait until tomorrow we are gonna get slammed. It will be interesting to see if we out do last week.

Kay, I just use 14 and 16 not large xlarge medium or whatever. I think it gets the point across. And boy lucky you I wish I had a third deck it sure would help.

 

[NicksPizza]

brandy7279:

My 16 1 topping are normally 10.60 tax inc. I was thinking instead of making my large discounted sell a 18 for 9.99. .61 difference that really isnt costing me anything more. It sounds cheap but is really not compared to knocking 5 off a 16. It sounds like yours is doing great. My 16 cost is 5.60 I might be afraid to go that low. Almost could advertise my large as xlge and still be same price as their discount.
FYI- my name is actually Kay- My dog is Brandy but I guess I answer to either!! Thanks for the idea-hope you keep getting great results.
Kay

Yikes. That caught my attention. My 16" one-topping pie has food cost of 3.42 (30%) and sells for 11.60 PLUS TAX . . . 12.41 incl tax. that is 10 oz cheese, 8oz sauce, 23oz dough, 3oz topping . . . AND box, stick-on ticket and delivery fee of $1.00. Without the box/ticket/delivery, my cost is 2.90 (25%) and my profit per pizza is 8.70 (75%).

Did I miss something I should have read? Or is what I am saying useless? OR am I seeing something that could be worth looking into?

If you can get your food cost down, then you can drop your prices to get more competitive . . . are leave them and make more margin. It sounds like your food cost is running 56% or more, and that sounds like cause to revisit the pricing and your costs costs.

 

[brandy7279]

No-Im sorry Im at 3.6 for 16-think I wrote 5.6- My food costs are usually pretty good in between 31-32%. I could get them to 30, but I start to feel like it affects my product. Been looking into different ideas right now like paper- my boxes right now run at .56 pp. I find that way to high, do you get your names printed on boxes or just use box toppers??

 

[NicksPizza]

brandy7279:

No-Im sorry Im at 3.6 for 16-think I wrote 5.6- My food costs are usually pretty good in between 31-32%. I could get them to 30, but I start to feel like it affects my product. Been looking into different ideas right now like paper- my boxes right now run at .56 pp. I find that way to high, do you get your names printed on boxes or just use box toppers??

My last box order had 16" ones at about .53 per each with my custom print on top. I think they are supposed to go up soon, so I am going to negotiate with my vendor about ordering a metric buttload of them to keep on hand. We just gained a bunch of storage space that can be used to stockpile 6 months worth of boxes, if we want to use iot for that (I supect a couple month’s worth will be enough for a price break. They won’t have to store them or deliver more than once every 8 to 12 weeks.