The Road Warriors
there is a war being fought on the roads, but you may not realize it when you cruise down the expressways. No road warriors will assault your vehicle with maces or numchuks. To the public, the war is quiet; to those involved, it is a fight for survival—a bitter battle. Don’t assume you aren’t involved in this war. When you arrive at a destination and begin the search for something to eat, you have just entered the fray. On the highways, in the cities and around the airports, restaurants serve the ceaseless flow of hungry travelers. Eateries are one of the firm pillars supporting the mighty temple of the travel and hospitality industry.
The battle to win the legions of hungry patrons can be divided many ways. Each restaurant is in competition with the others. There is, however, one division that has deep implications for those involved in commercial printing. On one hand, there are the chain and fast food restaurants, titans of edibles with seemingly endless supplies of resources; on the other hand, there are the independents, the mom and pop shops with unique decor and menus. Distributors can attack both ends of the spectrum with a number of clever marketing tools targeting both the titans and those with a more limited budget.
Out With the Old
“Independent restaurants are constantly fighting to stay alive against the major chains,” said Tom Hutchinson, president of Guest Checks Direct, Dawsonville, Ga. Hutchinson has been involved with the commercial printing industry for more than 35 years and has watched the evolution of hospitality businesses all the while. His own company has evolved to stay competitive in this field. Though his company is still titled Guest Checks Direct, Hutchinson says the actual guest check is no longer a significant portion of its business. Electronic point of sale (POS) computers have essentially eliminated the need for elegant custom guest checks. “Today, the customer gets a thermal receipt out of a computer printer,” Hutchinson said. But, while the computer has eliminated the need for the actual check, it has opened the door for significant specialization in order pads. “Many restaurants just use scratch pads. That is certainly adequate to write an order, but it doesn’t write it in an orderly fashion to enter it in the computer or to serve it.”
Hutchinson feels these forms are under-promoted by distributors and thus, underutilized by the restaurateurs. “A POS order form takes the order in the proper sequence, eliminates errors in computer data entry and, most importantly, it provides a means to serve the customer in an orderly fashion that a scratch pad doesn’t do,” Hutchinson said. In the battle for clientele, data entry errors resulting in incorrect orders or slow service can severely hurt the business.
Setting the Mood
For the independent restaurateur, the physical menu is one of the most important selling points. It is a critical and potentially costly element for all restaurants. The menu is also an important tool in creating the ambiance as well as company branding. But, in the age of home printing and design, few restaurants will even consider having menus printed by an outside company. Suppliers and distributors of printed products know there is no turning back from this movement. They have embraced it and adapted to it. Here, Hutchinson stresses the overall menu system.
Guest Checks Direct produces lines of pre-printed four-color menu papers to be used with customers’ own laser printers, essentially making the printing an in-house print job. “With a laser printer, the black copy is printed onto a four-color pre-printed sheet, making it a very attractive presentation,” Hutchinson said.
Combining menu covers, cases, holders, stands, even layout software with the papers, provides customers with a fully customizable system to produce their own menus without the high overhead of custom printing. Such a system saves restaurant owners thousands of dollars in overhead, which, as Hutchinson explained, is one of the greatest threats to the independent restaurant owner. “[Overhead] kills their margins and makes them non-competitive against the chains. They are diligently trying to reduce their overhead.”
From a distributor’s point of view, systems are a logical selling point. Hutchinson explained, “The professional distributor is system-minded and is used to selling systems in a commercial environment. Now, the restaurant is no different.” The beauty of this system-oriented approach to menus is that a restaurateur can change the prices, and make additions or subtractions with very little trouble and cost—a more professional alternate to menus covered in white-out or stickers to hide items or adjust pricing.
This same principle applies to daily menu specials, which tend to be under-purchased as servers often mention the special item, but not the price. Most buyers feel intimidated to order something without knowing the price and equally intimidated to ask the price, especially with guests at the table. A menu-system approach easily deals with such issues. Pricing changes are more important in respect to raw materials than to selling more daily specials. “We’re in a volatile pricing economy. They [restaurant owners] need to be able to adjust their prices accordingly and the restaurant that has the ability to do so will stay competitive,” Hutchinson stressed.
Giving It All Away
Gift cards are rapidly gaining popularity. Just a few years ago, they were a highly specialized gift idea. Now, they are ubiquitous. Brian Grimes, vice president of sales, Plastic Graphic Co., Wauconda, Ill., said, “Six years ago when we bought the business, Blockbuster was about the only guy out there who had a gift card.” Grimes continued, “Now, everyone from small salons with three people cutting hair to the very large retailers, seems to use gift cards.”
Around the holidays, gift cards account for several hundred million printed cards. Some estimates see every person receiving four or five cards every holiday season. With such growth and demand, many businesses are attempting to cash in on the idea of the gift card all year-round. In fact, what some chain eateries are now calling “stored-value cards” are essentially rechargeable gift cards for daily use. These companies often give incentives such as discounted or free items, depending on how much money is applied to the card.
The increasing abundance of stored-value cards bodes well for companies like Plastic Graphic Co., but this is a significant problem for the independent restaurant owner. Stored-value cards force buyers to eat at certain restaurants, so the money is already esentially spent. But, the independent restaurant can still utilize plastic cards. Plastic Graphic Co. prints key cards for hotels with space for advertising. Grimes noticed that as the tourism business was flailing, hotels turned to restaurants to cover the cost of cards. The keycard then became an advertisement for the restaurant.
“We’ve also seen restaurants that put things on there, such as, ‘bring your keycard and get $2 off your entree,’” Grimes said. This trend continues now that tourism is returning to full strength. Still, Hutchinson has observed a lull in tourism, but it may simply be that the economic impact from tourism has not quite reached the restaurants yet.
Grimes noted several trends pointing to a revitalized tourism industry. One is an Australian company using specially adjusted plastic cards as trendy luggage tags. According to Grimes, these have been “selling briskly.” In addition, he has observed significant new business from discount airlines. These companies now offer frequent flyer cards because they simply would not thrive in a tourism-poor economy. This is good news for both the independent restaurants and the chains.
So for distributors interested in this niche market, the war for hungry travelers is always good. The use of plastic printed products can be marketed to independents and chains alike. Chains can take equal advantage of system-oriented menu designs. It doesn’t matter who you’re marketing to; any business can take advantage of these ideas and it is always wise to keep a good eye on the competition’s schemes. A little healthy competition never hurt anyone.
In an attempt to promote tourism, discount airlines are offering frequent flyer cards, which are starting to gain popularity at a fast pace.
- Companies:
- Plastic Graphic Company