Ailing coffee and sandwich chain Pret A Manger announced on Friday that it would be launching its ‘YourPret Barista‘ digital scheme, offering up to five coffees per day to consumers for a mere £20 monthly subscription.
The offer, which will allow customers to buy up to 150 coffees per month, with up to five per day at thirty minute minimum intervals, is an effort to bring commerce back to coffeehouses which have suffered from greatly reduced footfall in city-centres.
Pret A Manger Chief Executive, Pano Christou, stated that: “There’s no doubt that workers will come into the office less often than beforehand […] Pret needs to adapt itself to the changes of customer patterns and that’s where we’ve been very focused.”
Further, the company’s Director of Coffee and Packaging, Briony Raven, added that, “It’s Pret’s way of doing loyalty […] It’s about giving people an easy choice, when they come back into their everyday routine.”
In Raven’s view, the YourPret Barista scheme was about making Pret the default choice for consumers looking for a convenient cup of coffee, whether they’re in the City or in the suburbs – the new initiative will act as something of a ‘Netflix for coffee’.
With plans to close 30 of its outlets and lay off a third of its staff, Pret A Manger has been hardest-hit in its London outlets, where sales have fallen 60% year-on-year for the year-to-date. The company added that it will focus its recovery on London suburbs and the home counties, where 40% of its business are currently based, and where normality was returning “far more swiftly” according to Christou.
The new scheme will also help to springboard the company’s other, new digital platform services, which NBK retail analyst Natalie Berg claims will allow customers to tailor spending according to their habits. Further to its pipeline of new products, the company added that consumers should also look out for extensions to its evening meal offer and deliveries, as well as its partnerships with Amazon, Ocado and Waitrose.
