Quote ="Paul_Lyon"ok , enough is enough on this topic.....
...I'm not exactly chuffed with the prices myself but its time we did some thinking around here....
why are beer prices so expensive at the LSV.....
Lets assume the bar opens half an hour before kick off, serves at half time and everyone who wants a drink after the game goes into legends, so the bar in the ground closes at full time.
That's a total of 40 minutes, during which most people buy a pint.
Lets also assume, the bar staff turn up at 2:30 and go home at 4:30...allowing time to clean up etc etc. (2 hours in total).
Lets say a normal person can serve one pint per minute and each pint makes a whopping 1 pound profit, over and above what is normally earned from beer.
So, that's 40 quid extra to pay for 1hr 20 mins hours staff time where they are not earning revenue.
Sunday rate + working for 2 hours is just not worth it and
then the fact that we play once every blue moon - the work is irregular...means we have to pay staff a lot.
lets be mean and pay 20 quid, leaving 20 pounds from my 40....
NI, employers indemnity insurance, manager salary...call it a fiver.....fifteen left
Then I have to have enough people to serve at the peak demand, but neither too few to stand around being idle that it costs too much. So I will over-staff to avoid complaints and get people served (10%)......another £2.50..........12.50 left as gross profit....
I have to guess how spectators are going to turn up, so I need to add cost margin for when i get it wrong....
then there is the weather - if its cold, i wont sell as much beer, no matter what the price, although i could hedge (for example)... sell mulled wine as well as ice cold beer (more cost).
then there is running costs (electricity, stock shrinkage (including perishable items)......cant calculate that but it has to come out of my 12.50 thats left.
Somehow, I have to factor in a portion of fixed costs....bar license, running the fridges when I'm not there.
So....what price elasticity do I need to make it worth my while, and the risk, to lower my prices???
How much more profit do I need to do this?
At what capacity do I run the bar?
any ideas?
All in all.....the beer is expensive because there is a lot of uncertainty in demand and the time to make money is very short compared to the total time needed to be there.
The normal bars should be cheaper because they can be fully utilised for the time they are open.'"
Sorry but the price is high because the 3rd party vendors have shareholders who want their dividends. A company will purchase a franchise to provide refreshments at venues like the LSV, virtually all such contracts mean they incur no overheads on a day to day basis (covered in franchise) and merely supply product and staff. They then price accordingly to recover the franchise payment and a % profit. They also enjoy zero competition within the ground.
Additionally the staff will almost certainly be getting minimum wage and there is no legal requirements to pay alternative rates for unsociable hours, if you don't like that deal and quit, the government will happily withold jobseekers allowance as you will have made yourself unemployed.
And finally I suggest a more realistic figure to be, if a vendor is charging £3 then £2 will be net operating profit.
