Menu Psychology Of Guzman Y Gomez: A Study On Menu Design, Product Placement, And Pricing Strategies

Menu Design Psychology

Question:

Development of Menu Represents A Significant Part Of Why Evolution Process?

In the present time, the restaurant business has evolved significantly in order to keep all the customers satisfied with the provided products and services. Development of menu represents a significant part of evolution process, as it can induce customers management to avail specific foods and services (Wansink and Love 2014). For that reason, restaurants often focus on developing the layout of the menu that is readable, informative and profitable. Psychologists have provided a list of practices that every restaurant should incorporate in their menu design for gaining higher profit from the market. In this report, the focus would be provided on the menu psychology of an Australian casual dining restaurant namely Guzman y Gomez. After establishment in 2006, Guzman y Gomez has developed 67 restaurants stores throughout Australia (guzmanygomez.com 2017). The report will aim to evaluate the psychological aspect of the menu. It will also focus on highlighting the factors that can have impact on the menu planning procedure.

As per the article by Malka and Soto (2015) restaurants that focuses on designing their menu in such a way so that it can highlight their most profitable offerings. Highlighting the items has been utilized in the retail sector for many years. The store counter, window and mannequin display are used to promote clothing and merchandise. Psychologists identified that customer notice of merchandise can induce them to purchase products on regular basis. On the other hand, if a customer fails to notice, it will be a zero probability of selling that product. Restaurants have focused on using merchandise concept in developing menu for highlighting their best products or most profitable item. It has been termed as menu psychology or menu design psychology.

Over the years, the design or structure of menu has evolved on continues basis in order to provide restaurants the opportunity to enhance profit in the competitive market. Guzman y Gomez specializes in producing Tex-Mex dishes such as nachos, burritos, quesadillas and taco, which has allowed the restaurant to develop a separate space for it in the market. For that reason, it has focused on placing all the prime items in the menu list in such a way so that it can grab the attention of the customers significantly. The menu design of Guzman y Gomez has also included small pictures of all the items within the menu so that it can provide customers an idea regarding the kind of foods they will receive after ordering a particular product. As illustrated by Johns, Edwards and Hartwell (2013) four different categories or factors are available including Stars, Puzzles, Plow horses and dogs that restaurants need to accommodate within the menu design in such a way so that it can ensure maximum profit for the organization. Now, Stars represents those products that are high in sales and high in profit. On the other hand, Puzzles reflects products that high in profit but low in sales. Plow horses represents low profit but high sales products while Dogs reflects low profit low sales products (Fleming 2013). The menu design aspect of Guzman y Gomez has focused on categorizing all the products within these factors for creating maximum impact on the sales volume.   

Guzman y Gomez Menu Design

As described by Ozdemir (2012) restaurants can use multiple nuances to coax customers in spending on more high profit items. Guzman y Gomez also has designed the menu in such a way so that it can able induce customers to purchase the most profitable products on regular basis. Moreover, Guzman y Gomez has also provided a conscious effort at the time of setting prices for each item. It has avoided of using dollar sign at the time of placing price in the menu list. Psychologists have highlighted that dollar symbols can actually induce customers to feel that they are spending larger amount when they are not. Moreover, Guzman y Gomez has also tried to avoid pricing strategy of 99 cents at the end. General assumption on 99 cents is that the particular product is cheap and unsatisfying. For that reason, the pricing strategy of Guzman y Gomez has focused more on setting up the price with 95 cents at the end (Roseman, Mathe-Soulek and Higgins 2013). With increasing competition, all restaurants are trying to introduce some unique and innovative services management in order to provide value added services to the customers. It has induced Guzman y Gomez to include some additional information like weight of the products, ingredients of the products and also amount of calorie one would consume by eating a specific item into their menu design. It has allowed Guzman y Gomez to provide some value added services to all the customers, which is likely to create positive impact in retaining them for long period of time. It has allowed Guzman y Gomez to achieve consistent growth in the extremely competitive Australian restaurant market. Thus, it can be assessed that both placing of the products in the menu list and price setting of the items can create major impact on the overall business level of the organization (Ozdemir and Caliskan 2015). Therefore, it is necessary for all the restaurants to utilize both the factors in such a way so that it can induce customers to spend more on the most profitable items on the product list.

The present design of menu of Guzman y Gomez has helped them to achieve continues success in the market. Guzman y Gomez has included a stepwise procedure in their present menu design in order to induce customers to spend more on more than one product (Yang 2012). However, some areas of menu design will have to consider by Guzman y Gomez in order to maximize the impact on the business level. Firstly, it will have to focus on using top right theory of the menu design comprehensively for inducing customers to select most profitable items on regular basis. The top right theory suggests that customers look at the top right section of the menu list at the beginning. For that reason, keeping the most profitable item in this section will allow that Guzman y Gomez to grab the attention of the customers easily. Secondly, Guzman y Gomez can also use box technique at the top right section in order to prominent the prime products comprehensively. Thirdly, Guzman y Gomez will have to focus on placing the “Puzzle” products at the most prominent position of the menu card. It will help the restaurant to increase the sales volume of the products that are high in profit but low in sales. Moreover, increasing popularity of Puzzle products will allow Guzman y Gomez to increase the number of prime products in their offering list in near future (Feldman et al. 2014). Fourthly, Guzman y Gomez will have to focus on developing menu with all the detailed information about the each item apart from the names and price list. For instance, it needs to add information about the time customers will have to wait for a particular product before serving. It will also need to provide detailed information about the amount of calorie associated with the each of the item. Fifthly, Guzman y Gomez needs to focus on using round figure prices rather than decimal pricing strategy. It can help Guzman y Gomez to increase the value of overall services.

Conclusion:

The above illustration has highlighted the fact that development of effective menu design is critical for achieving success in the market. It induces customers to purchase products that are more profitable in nature, which eventually creates positive impact on the overall sales volume. For that reason, restaurants need to be very careful at the time of designing the menu, as it can help to handle all the future challenges of the market effectively.

References:

Feldman, C., Su, H., Mahadevan, M., Brusca, J. and Hartwell, H., 2014. Menu psychology to encourage healthy menu selections at a New Jersey University. Journal of Culinary Science & Technology, 12(1), pp.1-21.

Fleming, A., 2013. Restaurant menu psychology: Tricks to make us order more. The Guardian, 8.

guzmanygomez.com, 2017. Guzman y Gomez - Mexican Taqueria. [online] Guzmanygomez.com. Available at: <https://www.guzmanygomez.com> [Accessed 30 Apr. 2017].

Johns, N., Edwards, J.S. and Hartwell, H.J., 2013. Menu choice: satisfaction or overload?. Journal of Culinary Science & Technology, 11(3), pp.275-285.

Malka, A. and Soto, C.J., 2015. Rigidity of the economic right? Menu-independent and menu-dependent influences of psychological dispositions on political attitudes. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 24(2), pp.137-142.

Ozdemir, B. and Caliskan, O., 2015. Menu design: A review of literature. Journal of Foodservice Business Research, 18(3), pp.189-206.

Ozdemir, B., 2012. A review on menu performance investigation and some guiding propositions. Journal of Foodservice Business Research, 15(4), pp.378-397.

Roseman, M.G., Mathe-Soulek, K. and Higgins, J.A., 2013. Relationships among grocery nutrition label users and consumers’ attitudes and behavior toward restaurant menu labeling. Appetite, 71, pp.274-278.

Wansink, B. and Love, K., 2014. Slim by design: Menu strategies for promoting high-margin, healthy foods. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 42, pp.137-143.

Yang, S.S., 2012. Eye movements on restaurant menus: A revisitation on gaze motion and consumer scanpaths. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 31(3), pp.1021-1029.