Remember the Pret subscription 5 coffees a day?

[Strippe]

How did they make money?

I used to get a coffee before work, a smoothie or coffee at lunch and a tea on the way home. I also used to let my dh use the code to get his drink.

I didn’t go everyday but I did milk it out.

Currently sitting in Pret now and a coffee is £3

Under the old system they would have been losing money.

I think they relied on customers deciding to buy other things at least once or more per day when they went to get coffee. I also imagine the profit they make on a hot drink is quite high,, meaning the monthly fee probably isn't too loss- leading. (This is speculative, I could be mistaken).

Yeah, it was a ‘loss leader’, it guaranteed that you would use them anytime you wanted a coffee. They ‘hoped’ you would pick up other stuff say snacks and that you would encourage other people to go with you who would then be business they would not otherwise have won.

just like supermarkets advertising say milk very cheap and rely on people buying other stuff when they go in to pick up the milk.

It's not easy to use it unless you share with someone. So office workers must have been rinsing it. If it really was only me I don't think I could ingest that much (non alcoholic) liquid. 🤣

well, the fact they changed it quite quickly suggests they didn't!

as pp's said they relied on it being a loss leader, in that someone choosing where to go for lunch would think 'Well I'll get my drink from pret because that's free,' and then when they were there think 'I cba to queue up somewhere again, I may as well grab a salad here too.'

The mark up on coffee is huge, so they would have "made" £5 on the cost of the sandwich/salad/snack vs loss of about 20p by giving away the 'free' coffee (slightly more for smoothies etc but still offset).

Or 'friend asks if I want to meet up for coffee, I'll suggest going to pret rather than costa, then I won't have to pay for my drink,' when they get there thinks 'ah I've saved money on a drink so I'll treat myself to a cake and it still works out cheaper than if we'd gone somewhere else,' friend also buys coffee and a cake = 3 items sold for the price of one free one.

They also probably thought 'surely nobody will actually drink 5 coffees a day,' underestimating the fondness of the great british public for a bargain!

As well as the Great British public's propensity to share their bargains with friends!

Only £3????? What ya drinking? Water?

The Pret near my office made a killing from it because the maybe 20% of the office with subscriptions would always head there for coffees with co-workers, and the co-workers would shell out full price, plus whatever snacks/lunch.