Pay as much as you like?

[Torsten]

Yesterday I saw an interesting report on TV: A restaurant owner from Iran who used to offer a lunch buffet for € 7 per person launched new pricing model. Now the customers can decide themselves how much they want to pay for their meal. He has been running this project for quite a while now and said that the average amount his customers have been paying is way above 7 €.

The journalists in the program interviewed a few customers who said they wanted to honor the trust that was extended to them by paying more than the restaurant owner might expect. There were only very few customers who actually paid 5 € -- none of them paid less than 4.

What do you think of this concept? Would it work with any restaurant or service or are there certain criteria that must be met to make it a success?

TOEIC listening, photographs: Motorboats

[Omar Wahdan]

bad idea... maybe he should of put a limit on how low they CAN pay...

as for the criteria ... i got no idea...

[Jamie (K)]

Everything depends on the mentality of the people where it's tried. In my neighborhood, people would probably pay more than the real value of the meal. However, in the neighborhood a few blocks away from me, people wouldn't pay more than a fraction of what the meal is worth, and news would spread around the neighborhood until soon most of the customers would be surly, smelly people demanding free food, and the better paying customers would be driven away by the bad atmosphere.

[Alan]

Hi Torsten,

Your story reminds me of a time when London museums were allowing visitors to enter for free although they could make a contribution if they so wished. What happened was that if you decided to enter for free, you were asked whether you wanted to pay something in a very surly manner with the hint that if you didn't, you really were beneath contempt. As a result most people coughed up.

Alan
_________________
English as a Second Language
You can read my ESL story Present Simple

[Jamie (K)]

When the museums in my city had only voluntary admission fees, they became havens for the homeless and mentally ill, especially when it rained. Visitors were harassed for money not by the staff, but by the street people who hung out there all the time. Sometimes they were even menaced by street people wanting sex. The furniture had to be cleaned more often than normal, because some unwashed person would leave his stench on it. There were a lot of problems. Now they charge about $8 to get in, but there are all kinds of ways to get discounts or free admission if one is alert and literate, which means these street people seldom get in.

[CarlosHenrique]

I would like to pay the lesspossible for a good food of course that is impossible to eat for less of $5 nowdays I think . May be the time to find up somebody to cook to me ! Carlos Bras :)