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Post by Jennifer on Aug 22, 2020 14:44:08 GMT
their plan was and is to eventually charge less for digital + virtual. I did not know that, interesting. |
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Post by finreporter on Aug 22, 2020 18:24:27 GMT
Digital plus virtual membership does not exist it's digital plus studio. (Virtual was supposed to be temporary) When they had to close their doors over 30,000 live meetings were transitioned to virtual in 3 days. Well, yes, but sort of no. That is, yes they offered virtual "temporarily" when they had to shut down for live meetings. However, before all that in the earnings call prior, WW had said that they plan to later this year offer a digital plus virtual meetings that will be price at more than digital but less than digital for workshops. So they clearly know that it isn't "worth" as much as digital + workshops because they were going to be charging less for it. Having it be priced between digital only and digital plus workshops seems fair enough (of course, have to see the final pricing). But when Covid happened they "temporarily" switched workshop member to what is essentially digital + virtual but they kept charging people for digital + workshops. They absolutely know that is unfair because their plan was and is to eventually charge less for digital + virtual. Even though I wasn't having to pay for that as I was free lifetime it does seem very unjust and kind of a scummy thing to do. Wow I hadn’t listened to the prior earnings call so I didn’t realize they’d fully acknowledged that digital plus virtual was worth less value than digital plus workshops. And yet still kept charging members for monthly pass at full rate. That really pisses me off on their behalf. |
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Kitty
Transcendent Member
Posts: 1,465
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Post by Kitty on Aug 23, 2020 1:23:23 GMT
finreporter, Yes they said they were doing testing at that time to determine at exactly what price point in between they would offer it. One of the advantages of listening to earnings call is that it really, really does make it clear that WW exists as a business to make money. Mindy Grossman's job is to make money and deliver value to shareholders. There is, of course, nothing inherently wrong with that. Businesses need to make money in order to survive. But, that is the point. WW is a business. The primary goal is to make money. I don't mean that management doesn't care about helping members lose weight. I don't agree with those people who things that WW wants people to fail at losing weight. Still ...the goal is to make money. So, they will charge what the members are willing to pay.
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Post by finreporter on Aug 23, 2020 2:40:19 GMT
kitty, that's definitely a good point. i used to be one of the financial reporting analysts for a publicly traded company and i would write the quarterly earnings calls verbiage for our CFO.
when i read the earnings calls of WW, it does put me back in that same mindset, not as the end user, but from the viewpoint of the company in the business of maximizing shareholder profit, and really nothing else was the ultimate goal.
but it does feel annoying to know that and see WW swindle people out of money that wasn't in return for the value they were promised.
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