These Restaurants Have Launched Subscription Services

It’s not just media companies. Some restaurants have been turning to the subscription game too. 

What Happened: Taco Bell, a subsidiary of Yum! Brands YUM, recently launched a subscription service at its Tucson, Arizona locations, where customers can get one taco per day for a monthly fee, per Modernretail reporting. Costs range between $5 and $30 for a 30-day pass. 

Why It Matters: Taco Bell isn’t the only company to slide into the subscription side of things to entice customers to more consistently frequent its restaurants. Panera PNRA launched a monthly coffee and tea subscription service in February 2020. McDonald’s MCD and Burger King, of Restaurant Brands International QSR, have also rolled out loyalty programs of their own. 

These changes seem to be following a trend to transition customers to more frequently make purchases at their brand. A 2020 McKinsey survey found that members of a paid loyalty program were 60% more likely to spend more on a brand after subscribing to it, in comparison with free loyalty programs, which only increases the spending likelihood by 30%.

It’s possible that loyalty programs yield better responses because customers are afraid of falling into the sunk-cost fallacy, where they feel they are at a loss unless they engage in the activity they’ve already paid for — even if they wouldn’t accrue any enjoyment from doing so. 

Photo: PJ Gal-Szabo via Unsplash.