Monday, December 06, 2010

Business model

Sometimes, especially when it inconviences me, I wonder about some business models.

Take, for example, Panera Bread Company. They offer free wi-fi, so people will come there to use it. I wonder how many people are there however, sipping a latte' for hours. This is assuming, of course, that they have the common courtesy to even buy anything.

I have to wonder however, how much money they are loosing because thse people are taking up all the parking spaces, keeping other paying customers that would just like to get a quick soup and sandwich to go on a cold snowy day from being able to even get in the door.

Maybe it isn't the free wifi. Maybe they are simply so overwhelmingly successful that they don't need my business the last six times I have tried to get lunch from them. But the chinese place seems grateful for my business instead.

Hot and Sour soup and sesame' chicken may not be quite the same as French Onion soup in a bread bowl, but I'm able to actually get in and purchase the later, while after circling the lot with several other cars, I abandoned any hope for the former.

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