Quote:
Originally Posted by horses4courses
You're right about that.
In and Out often paid more to their employees than other franchises.
Always appeared to give them a harder working and focused work force.
Yet, they still kept their prices on the low side.
Reasonably increasing prices for them won't lead to a big downturn in sales.
Smart business model.  |
I think paying higher than your competitors can have rewards for both sides in many situations. Looks like In & Out did not raise prices to the levels percentage wise others did, probably because they were paying closer to $20
new wage than the old $16 minimum. People who visited me from out of state when I lived in Cali wanted to know when we were going to In & Out. One thing the food was consistent and so were the wait times. You weren't ever wondering if they were waiting for the cows to produce milk for your milkshake because you were sitting in the same spot in the drive thru for the last 15 minutes.
Another big thing I noticed in pay level differences was Grainger vs McMaster Carr. I would be shocked if anyone here other than me heard of both of them.
They are Industrial Supply Houses that sell similar items, and have similar job positions. The difference is Grainger is publicly traded and they carpet bomb radio ads, usually on sports broadcasts like Nascar. McMaster Carr is privately held & does not advertise, I don't even think they have much of an outside sales force. You pretty much hear about them through word of mouth. Since they are private, on a guess Grainger is 10x the size of McMaster.
Here is the kicker, McMaster pays well above industry wages, Grainger lower. If they were in the same locale McMaster would pay $5 an hour more. McMaster also has a better stock of catalog items, carries higher quality products about the same price as Grainger and provides much better customer service.
I worked at a Grainger a little more than 40 years ago, they still want you to throw a catalog at a customer and tell them to pick out their own crap
They are my last resort for industrial supplies. I probably average a McMaster order a week, been buying from them for over 30 years. They went 25 of those before screwing up back to back orders. I wonder if it was the same employee? One order they packed bent tool steel rods , not the UPS typical mangle job as the packaging looked fine, then when they replaced the bent up tool steel they sent the wrong size.
By the time Grainger processes your order your items from McMaster Carr have arrived. Another caveat, the McMaster Carr website is the gold standard.
