Surgical Pricing Strategies: How QSRs Can Navigate Inflation

Has consumer dining behavior returned to pre-pandemic levels? Many standard indices say yes. While it’s understandable to believe everything is back to normal – according to our QSR monthly trends, August 2023 traffic was down just half a percent compared to 2022 – the landscape has taken a seismic shift.  

Using the QSR traffic and sales data Revenue Management Solutions (RMS) has been gathering for 25-plus years, our analysts recently completed an exhaustive comparison of pre and post-pandemic data, comparing the first two quarters of 2022 and 2023 to the same period in 2019. 

The differences are drastic. For example, we noted above that in August 2023, YOY traffic was holding steady. Since 2019, however, QSR traffic has been down nearly 20% (18.4 percent) and trending downward since January 2022, when it was just 15.5 percent lower than 2019.

 

Also startling is the change in the QSR average check. Comparing YOY, the average check is up just seven percent. But…