The Menu Magician

I am impressed by the insights shared by Gregg Rapp here. Gregg describes himself as Restaurant Consultant - specialized in Menu Profitability. His job is to make clients buy more expensive items on the menu.

It's surprising to find out that most expensive new items on a restaurant menu can boost revenues, even if nobody buys them. The reason is that people use to buy the second most expensive item on the list - and use the most expensive item for comparison.

Can this insight be applied on designing the assortment of a Convenience category? Is it worth for a retailer to invest in stock for expensive articles and this to have a positive impact on the category profitability? The most appropriate for this should be the low-frequency high-involvement categories like cream&lotions, premium alcoholic products, consumer electronics and white goods.