Well, you might be thinking that McDonald’s is recession proof – it is affordable, fast, and has good variety of food offering. But the truth of the matter is, it is not. This year, sales for the fast-food giant are flat in 2009 during one of the most dramatic stock rallies in history. While they continue to expand overseas, sales in the United States have dipped to 0.1 percent in October and they are likely to stay weak the rest of the year.
The underlying problem has been attributed to the rise of unemployment in the country for men aged 18 to 40, which has slowed the customer traffic since then. Accordingly, one research said that visits to fast food restaurants significantly declined to about 3% over the summer – the worst performance in decades. Nowadays, people now prefer to stay home for meals, as they don’t have to spend for more.
Another problem to which the problem has been attributed to is the soaring and increasing price in the fast-food chain. The soaring costs of many of its ingredients make fast-food chains no longer an attractive place to visit.
As a solution, McDonald’s plans to add a dollar breakfast meal add-on in its many food varieties in January. They hope that adding a low-priced menu will help boast sales for the company’s premium coffee offerings including some cheaper drinks and smoothies. The dollar coffee offerings is dubbed as McCafe, which has never become a game-changer the company anticipated it to be.
Many people argue on McDonald’s effort as they believe a better promotional campaign that would increase sales. For one, erasing the notion what their competitor, Wendy’s has said that they used frozen burger patties. But spokesperson declined to comment.
With the number of jobless continually rising in the following years, it has been a very remarkable run for the company. But again, their mission will not be accomplished unless they turn around United States Sales.