McDonald’s Wants to Sell You Doughnuts

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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McDonald’s Wants to Sell You Doughnuts

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A new product may appear near you somewhere on the miles-long menu at McDonald’s. The massive fast-food chain has begun experimenting with selling Krispy Kreme doughnuts. (Click here for brands that customers are abandoning.)
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It is a frontal assault against Dunkin’, which sells doughnuts nationwide from its 9,468 stores. If the McDonald’s plan works, Dunkin’ has a problem. McDonald’s has 13,269 stores in America. It also has a much larger amount of foot and drive-through traffic.
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Few people know Dunkin’s revenue because it is privately held. McDonald’s has revenue of $32 billion, which must be much higher.

The McDonald’s playbook to devour competition has been in place for decades. It adds to its menu and captures customers who come to its stores. It has partially flanked Starbucks, and it has undermined breakfast sales at several other midsized fast-food locations, such as Burger King and Chick-fil-A.
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McDonald’s was a destination for people who wanted lunch or dinner. It found that this capped its revenue. It pushed into the breakfast business. It also opened most of its stores 24 hours a day. It may lose money at 3 a.m., but it offers every potential customer service. This, in turn, engenders a level of brand loyalty.
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CNBC summed up McDonald’s efforts: “McDonald’s saw its U.S. traffic increase in the second half of the year, bucking the industry trend thanks to its cheap deals. The burger chain has also been leaning into coffee — a common pairing with doughnuts —to encourage diners to visit more frequently.”

McDonald’s has carpet bombed the competition and will continue to do so.

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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