

Medium, Please - illdave
http://www.smashrobot.com/marketing/medium/

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acabal
This seems very dishonest to me, and if I was a random walk-in customer of
that coffee shop, I'd feel cheated. I have absolutely no idea how many ounces
are in a "medium" at any coffee shop, and I don't want to know. When I ask for
a medium, what I'm really saying is, "please give me a reasonably sized cup of
coffee, not too big, not too small."

If I'd have asked for a medium and gotten a super-jumbo-medium handed to me,
I'd have felt manipulated in some vague way--as if the big coffee shop knows
damn well what a "medium" is, and they know damn well that that's what I want,
but they're going to give me their own special interpretation of a "medium,"
which is more coffee than I want, and also just so happens to cost $1 more.
Fuck that, and too bad you didn't mention the name of your chain so that I can
try not to visit.

~~~
hrabago
I remember reading about the application of this mindset in retail
establishments before. It's also why I never specify a size before seeing the
actual cup sizes.

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Deestan
Aren't you afraid that you are abusing the trust of your customers? They say
"medium" and trust you to provide a reasonably-sized coffee, but you sell them
a large one instead.

Have you tracked how many customers leave their coffee half-finished now that
you changed the labels?

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foresterh
One reason I always say "16 ounce" or "12 ounce". I have no idea if they speak
Starbuckian or any other coffeeshop lingo, but 16 ounces is always 16 ounces.

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TorKlingberg
That will not work outside America though.

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snprbob86
But Starbuck's made up words will?

I wonder if the metric system has an analogous unit of measure to the
ounce....

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danohuiginn
well, duh. asking for medium is like saying "stop asking me questions, and
just give me the damn coffee". I doubt relabelling does you any more good than
just raising the markup on your (genuinely) medium coffee. Repeat customers
will figure out what size they like, and one-off visitors will, if anything,
just feel jerked around.

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shalmanese
This is the well known Goldilocks effect:
<http://www.venchar.com/2004/01/extremeness_ave.html>

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trotsky
If people didn't really want the extra coffee (and it seems unlikely they
did), how exactly is this different from "We wanted to make more money, so we
raised our prices" ?

~~~
swombat
They were still offering the smaller options. They didn't raise their prices,
they just made them more misleading. This is just one of those dark patterns
that works and can even be essential for some kinds of businesses:
[http://swombat.com/2010/12/19/dark-patterns-good-for-
busines...](http://swombat.com/2010/12/19/dark-patterns-good-for-business)

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hammock
I went into Subway today just to get a drink. I asked for a medium (I admit I
am in the habit of doing that everywhere, and it's usually a pretty safe
option). She pointed to a giant 40oz Big Gulp-looking plastic cup. Apparently
"medium" has been growing not just at coffeeshops.

The best part is that, as I slurp down my 600-calorie soda, I can read on the
side of the cup about how many Subway sandwiches are so healthy and just
200-300 calories.

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apinstein
I know how and why it works, but some part of me feels that it's improper.

I can't be sure because TFA didn't show it, but I'll bet that the store have a
display with sizes and prices readily visible.

Thus, taking this approach is basically saying "We're going to try to trick
you into ordering more than you want, charge you more than you expected, and
hope that in aggregate our customers are too lazy or don't care enough about
50 cents to push back. At least for a few years, and by then we'll be much
richer."

I can just never bring myself to resorting to such tricks. Am I the only one?

~~~
michaelbuckbee
I think you're overstating the case, things like: Large vs Small beer -
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xSDI9Gg63I> \- are flatly unethical. If
someone asked for a 16oz Coffee and you gave them 12oz in a skinny cup so it
looked taller that would be unethical as well.

But, if you have a series of smaller to larger cups lined up on a counter and
you ask people which one they want and then give them what they asked for, I
can't see that being unethical.

To me, this is just another form of advertising.

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evo
I wouldn't be surprised if Starbucks' actual coffee size naming scheme seeks
to benefit from this effect while dodging the flak.

Changing the normal offered beverages from "Short", "Tall", and "Grande" to
"Tall", "Grande", and "Venti" obtains the same effect as described in this
post without being as overt about it. (On the face of it, "Grande" is an odd
thing to call a medium beverage in the first place.)

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rradu
This also means that the price of all sizes went up, which must have messed
with demand. Was there consideration of possible lost sales?

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acangiano
This is a well known concept in pricing theory. If you have multiple, directly
comparable offers, always have an out of reach option. Doing so will
automatically lead more people to buy the next, more affordable option.

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civilian
I wonder when they'll make the shift again when people figure out that the
"small" is really what they want. Then there can be a "small" 16oz coffee :D

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ookblah
ok i feel like a dummy but this doesn't make sense to me.

they just relabeled the old large -> new medium but kept the price points the
same? so if a medium 12 oz. was $2, and a large 16 oz. was $4, the "medium" $2
cup is now 16 oz. doesn't that mean they are now giving out more coffee for
the same price? how does that help their bottom line...

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SoftwareMaven
The price of 12 or 16 ounces of coffee didn't change, just the label on the
cup changed. Making up all numbers here, it is like this:

    
    
      Ounces   Size Before    Size After    Cost
      12oz     Small          Extra Small   $2
      16oz     Medium         Small         $3
      24oz     Large          Medium        $4
      128oz    N/A            Large         $15
    

Notice cost/ounce for a particular number of ounces never changes.

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rubyrescue
what are the margins on a cup of coffee?

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epochwolf
When I worked at Subway a 32oz soda cost the store around 10 cents total for
the soda and the cup. We sold them for $1.45 each. (Approximate, this was 4
years ago)

I would imagine plain coffee has similar margins but there is a fair amount of
overhead to run a store which is why the markup is so high.

~~~
kia
Drinks is the biggest revenue source for fast food chains.

~~~
genieyclo
For any food establishment. Or you're doing something wrong.

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kunday
you should probably read predictably irrational if you have not already..

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Adrock
Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational is really good and the very first chapter
discusses this exact phenomenon and some of the subtleties surrounding it.

He also mentions it in one of his excellent TED talks:

<http://www.ted.com/speakers/dan_ariely.html>

------
phylofx
"...astonishing..."

