Latest / Best of Business / Louis Esther: EatClub chief marketing officer on the new app that offers dynamic pricing for restaurants

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Louis Esther: EatClub chief marketing officer on the new app that offers dynamic pricing for restaurants · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from Newstalk ZB. Follow this
• 0:13
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• 0:16
  Speaker 2: There is a new app that's launching today called Eat
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Club that will bring dynamic pricing to restaurants and hospitality
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: in New Zealand. Louis Esther is the Chief Marketing Officer
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: of Eat Club who's with us.
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  Speaker 1: Hi, Louis.
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  Speaker 3: Hi, Heather.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: So the idea here is basically, does it work like this?
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: You've got a half-empty restaurant. You think, I can get
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  Speaker 2: more people in here. You go on to Eat Club,
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  Speaker 2: chuck up a discount. Immediately, people come in the door.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Work like that?
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  Speaker 3: That's exactly it. There's really two parts to it. So
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  Speaker 3: from the restaurant perspective, it's ultimately a portal that allows
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  Speaker 3: them to create extremely granular offers, but exactly like you said,
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: in real time when they need the tables filled.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: So who do you think, because if you popped it,
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  Speaker 2: like how quickly do you think I'm coming in if
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  Speaker 2: the discount is up? An hour, two hours, 30 minutes, what?
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  Speaker 3: So it can be very quick and that's the beauty
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  Speaker 3: of the platform. So for restaurants, there's not fixed scheduling
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  Speaker 3: and the same offers are popping up every week. They're
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  Speaker 3: able to be very granular and if the weather changes
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  Speaker 3: and people have last minute cancellations, they're able to put
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  Speaker 3: an offer up and in a very short space of time,
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  Speaker 3: turn those empty tables into extra dollars. And so in
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  Speaker 3: some of our other markets, we operate at scale across
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  Speaker 3: Australia and UK already. In the space of 30 minutes
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  Speaker 3: to an hour, they can turn those empty tables into
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  Speaker 3: pretty full ones.
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  Speaker 2: But so then who do you think it is that
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  Speaker 2: would be taking up this offer? It must be people
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  Speaker 2: who've already glammed themselves up and said, you know what, Dal,
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  Speaker 2: let's go for dinner. And then you look at what's available.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. So it's a real mix. There's planned availability where
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  Speaker 3: a restaurant might have a known sort of quiet time
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  Speaker 3: around 3 to 5 p.m. And they want to start
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  Speaker 3: the atmosphere early, get some people sitting in the windows
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  Speaker 3: at the front of a restaurant and bringing that vibe.
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  Speaker 3: Or it might be more that last minute cancellation and
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  Speaker 3: weather change effects. So it's a real mix of both
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  Speaker 3: planned and spontaneous availability. And then diners, when they're flexible
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  Speaker 3: with where they want to go, when they want to go,
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  Speaker 3: they're able to get a really compelling offer to go
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  Speaker 3: to that venue.
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  Speaker 2: Good stuff, Louis. Thanks for running us through it. Louis Esther,
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  Speaker 2: Chief Marketing Officer of EatClub.
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