This has nothing to do with local food, gardening, or sustainability, but for people who like cocoa and frequent Caribou Coffee, have you noticed anything peculiar about the menu?
The kids cocoa is the same size as a regular small cocoa, and it comes with cookie bits on top. But it’s almost a dollar cheaper than the not-cookie-bits-having cocoa for adults. This seems like a failure of basic economic principles. What kind of business model charges less for more product? I suppose it’s meant to be some sort of loss leader – maybe they hope to get parents to take their kids to Caribou to build brand loyalty and get the parents to buy more expensive drinks. And maybe they figure that any adult ordering cocoa will be too embarrassed to order the kiddie version.
Apparently I don’t have enough shame. And since I don’t actually want the cookie bits or the whipped cream, I just ask for the kids cocoa without all that stuff on it. It’s almost surprising that there’s not a surcharge for opting out of the toppings, given the backwards logic. But if you don’t embarrass easily, then feel free to exploit this loophole.
hahahahahha!
When my in-laws lived in Jamaica, Domino’s Pizza (one cannot solely survive on jerk chicken it seems) would charge them *more* if they wanted to leave off toppings of, say, The Works pizza (like, leave off the olives). How does that make sense?!?!
“I’ll have a chicken salad sandwich . . .”
Interesting bit of market segmentation, though I’m guessing it’s less Toyota/Lexus and more that some bean counter decided that stocking an extra size of cup was going to cost more than the 4 oz less drink for the kiddie size saved.
I stopped at a starbucks off I-70 once, ordered an espresso, and got charged the extra shot price rather than the actual cost. I might actually go to starbucks outside of desperate circumstances if I could always get 80 cent espresso.
So, I have a question – will places actually sell you the kids hot chocolate if you’re an adult? Like, I always assume they’re for the 12 and under crowd – kind of like how the kids menus at a lot of restaurants have age restrictions.
If I ordered that hot chocolate I would have to get it with the cookie bits – that just sounds too good to pass up.
They sold it to me, so I don’t think they have an age restriction.
I would imagine most purchases of kids products are made by adults. It would be kind of hard to demand that the kid be standing at the counter with you so I guess that can’t really monitor that. I’ll have to try it.
[...] Gradually Greener wonders about the mechanics of hot chocolate pricing. [...]