Benzinga | Sep 27, 2021 08:18AM EDT

These Restaurants Have Launched Subscription Services

It's not just media companies. Some restaurants have been turning to the subscription game too.

What Happened Taco Bell, a subsidiary of Yum! Brands (NYSE:YUM), recently launched a subscription service at its Tucson, Arizona locations, where customers can get one taco per day for a monthly fee, per Modernretail reporting. Costs range between $5 and $30 for a 30-day pass.

Why It Matters Taco Bell isn't the only company to slide into the subscription side of things to entice customers to more consistently frequent its restaurants. Panera (NYSE:PNRA) launched a monthly coffee and tea subscription service in February 2020. McDonald's (NYSE:MCD) and Burger King, of Restaurant Brands International (NYSE:QSR), have also rolled out loyalty programs of their own.

These changes seem to be following a trend to transition customers to more frequently make purchases at their brand. A 2020 McKinsey survey found that members of a paid loyalty program were 60% more likely to spend more on a brand after subscribing to it, in comparison with free loyalty programs, which only increases the spending likelihood by 30%.

It's possible that loyalty programs yield better responses because customers are afraid of falling into the sunk-cost fallacy, where they feel they are at a loss unless they engage in the activity they've already paid for -- even if they wouldn't accrue any enjoyment from doing so.

Photo: PJ Gal-Szabo via Unsplash.