Strip Club Economics

While it may seem logical to lower dance prices to increase dances for the benefit of the dancer and the customer, that may not benefit the club.

Most of the clubs I have been familiar with charge a fee to the dancer to dance. I am aware some clubs take a cut of the dancers dance but I think they are the minority. Since club management wants to maximize their revenue, they do not benefit from lower dance prices but do benefit from fees from more dancers.

While drink revenue may increase on Wednesday due to higher traffic, higher traffic also results in higher costs to the club, and they may not want to incur those costs on other days.

I am sure we have all been in clubs and thought, "if they only did..."they would make more money, and we all have been in these clubs and realize management places their needs above the customers.

A corporate owned club has more incentive to maximize the customer experience, while a privately owned club reaches its comfort level and doesn't care about the customer experience.

tittyfan,

I don't understand your logic. Yes, drink revenue will increase with more customers but won't dance revenue increase as well? I think steve229 has a valid point. Whether the club charges a daily fee to the dancer or gets a cut of each dance, it looks to me like the club stands to gain with more dancers and dances. The dancers are the ones dealing directly with the customers so they know when the money's there. If there's over twice as many dancers in the club when the price is low, chances are that's when business is good.
What's the cost of higher traffic? A couple more bartenders and bouncers? Should be more than offset by the increased revenue.
I don't think it takes a genius to run a strip club but a smart owner will do a lot better than a dumb one. I've seen some poorly run clubs and some of them don't make it.

Talking to dancers, their sense seems to be that guys come in with a fixed amount of cash to "blow". If the dance costs are lower they will just buy more until their money is all gone. That means on days when dances cost less, you'll see more customers coming in because they know they can have more fun given their budget.

So yes, it's a no-brainer that the club ought to lower its prices across the board. (And for the pedantic out there, of course there is a limit to how low they can go. You can't go all the way down to $1/dances because of limits on time and how many dancers/customers you can get in the club. At $20/dance 25 dances you, very likely, aren't close to approaching those limits.)

happylap: "tittyfan, I don't understand your logic."

Logic in general, and economics in particular, are not tittyfan's strong suits so you'll have to forgive him for not making sense.

I'm not sure it's the no-brainer Dougster makes it out to be. If, in Steve229's example, a club charges less for lapdances on Wednesday, and then they change the price for the rest of the week to Wednesday's price, then how is this club supposed to attract customers on Wednesday? The fact is few customers go on Wednesday, so if you don't do something special, no one will come.

Of course, you got to ask the question of why they thought to lower prices on Wednesday in the first place. I have never heard of a club that did something like that. Usually, clubs either resort to 2-for-1's or amateur contests for slow nights of the week.

Many here think that strip club economics are not the same as the rest of the world.

My point was that although lower dance prices benefit the customer, management in most cases doesn't care about benefiting the customer.

There are too many unknowns about this club to make specific comments, thus my response was in general terms.

Maybe this is a club that is only busy on weekends, and they have a Wednesday special to increase traffic that day. Most clubs see a dramatic dropoff in business on Mon and Tues with a general pickup Thurs thru Sat.

Mauybe the club prices at $30 to create an aura of being high end.

In Az you have quality dances at $10 and the girls stay pretty busy but Az is a unique market.

Dougster, hear that noise? It is the dollar crashing this morning. You lose again.

To add another comment, as I mentioned earlier management tends to manage to their comfort level. A fairly busy SC is very profitable. The owner may not care about incurring added costs, headaches. LE etc to make more money because he is happy where he is.

Dance prices are at what they think the market will bear in their respective community. Lower prices may bring in more customers, but they may not be the type of customers management wants. Price differentiation is a means of discriminating your clientele.

My logic is only lost on people that are narrow minded.

Dougster, you better duck, the $ is crashing this morning.

tx: crashing? Not sure what you are talking about. Here is the quote I get:

DXY: 79.953 +0.118

So if the USD goes up it's crashing? Very interesting "open minded" logic you have there. I'll stick with "narrow minded" logic where stuff logic like mathematics and correctness work.

Clubber observed, "Many here think that strip club economics are not the same as the rest of the world."

Many here do not understand economics in "the rest of the world" to begin with...

Dougster, you are such a predictable idiot. My comment this morning was a sarcastic response to your claim I said the dollar would crash. That is a comment I never made, but I am used to your arguing imaginary comments others make in your quest to show you are 10x smarter than everyone else.
At the time of my post, the dollar was at 79.55, which is well below your quote. But as usual, you chose to use selective facts for your arguments. When you got your quote, I am sure you saw the low was at 79.46 this morning.

I don't care what the dollar does, the fun is in exposing you for being the purveyor of bullshit that you are.

You even again made the comment that I believe the market goes up due to happy thoughts. What I said, and continue to say is that I am a happy person because I am a winner, and that you are an angry person fabricating arguments because you are a loser.
You exhibit the traits of a loser.
You lose again. and the short bus is waiting for you at your house.

Tittyfan--

You've got it backwards. A corporate owned club has little incentive or flexzibility to cater to truely changing customer satisfaction iusues because it is tethered to the rules of absentee owners and on-site management always plays "by the boobk" because that's the corporate way--don't rock the boat.

On the other had, the privately owned/loocally owned club that can make addjustments on a whim is more likely to achieve a higher l;evel opf customer satisfaction thaan the corporate variety--because they acttually can create a copmfort zozne. In a corporate club, everrything is kpre-fabricated, nothing is "created."

Noce I said CAN. It doesn't always happen this way. But common sense and plenty of club evidene says that it should.

Back to Steve229's point about club owners and "the finer points of economics." Well, from my observations, most club owners don't understand the finer points of economics. Thatg's why we seee so many absurdities in clubs.

how,

AMEN! If anyone is interested, a good book to read is "Common Sense Economics", by James Gwartney, Richard L. Stroup, and Dwight R. Lee. It is short and written in plain English. Also, follow the columns of Walter E. Williams and Thomas Sowell.

TB,

I didn't say that SC and other economics are different. I said, "Many here think that strip club economics are not the same as the rest of the world."

gk,

To me, the customer experience does not need to include extras. Most of the highly rated clubs herein are corporate owned. Note the success of the various national/regional chains. They appeal more to the mass market than they do to the hobbyist.

tx: "At the time of my post, the dollar was at 79.55"

If it really was "crashing" won't it have gone down more? Today we were up. Looks like your "knowing what the market will do every day before it opens" was wrong again.

Did you see a down tick in the futures market and blow your load thinking the dollar crash you've been dreaming of had actually started? Ooops!

tx: "You exhibit the traits of a loser. "

Well you claim to be a trader. Your verifiable calls so far have been:

a) China would stop buying long term US treasuries in June
b) June 9, the day before the bottom, was a good day to start shorting treasuries
c) the world was fleeing the US dollar and it would continue to fall

Your score is 0 right and 3 wrong, happy disposition or not.

By "traditional" as opposed to "open minded" logic you plainly are not very good at calling market direction, which, any sane person would agree is the real loser trait as far as traders go.


tx: "the fun is in exposing you for being the purveyor of bullshit that you are"

Let's see you were the one who said China was going to stop buying long term US treasuries last month, and I'm the "purveyor of bullshit". More of you "open minded" logic, I see. :-)

As far as the "successful = happy" and "loser = unhappy" equation goes. I know that is what your self-help books teach you, but if you could think for yourself (not a trait you appear to have witness your tagging along on the "treasuries will collapse" bandwagon) you would see that it's not necessarily true.

Here are a couple of counter examples to help you out: Elvis = successful singer but very unhappy toward the end. Hemingway = successful writer but also not happy. Gödel = highly successful scientist but also unhappy.

I'm not sure if there have any studies, but there certainly isn't any logical necessity there. I've actually heard it argued that correlation might be an inverse one, though I haven't studied it in enough detail to draw my own conclusions. (I do have some ideas regarding the possible inverse and how it relates to certain brain chemicals, but that is discussion for another time.)

In any case your conclusion demonstrates what a "purveyor of BS" you are...

IDIOT TX LOSES AGAIN!

I'm no economist, but ranted a little while back on my barely-there blog about pricing in clubs.

http://wallanon.blogspot.com/2009/03/bit…

Since I have writer's block on reviews, the one I referred to in the blog entry still isn't written, I might start blogging a little more often on club type things.

"If anyone is interested, a good book to read is 'Common Sense Economics', by James Gwartney, Richard L. Stroup, and Dwight R. Lee."

LOL...what a cast of Right-wing clowns...in particular, Dwight R. Lee, who served as a "peer-review" for the infamous Tobacco Institute's complete hogwash "studies". He also co-wrote "In Defense of Monopoly"...lol...what a joke...

As they say, takes one to know one, IE: "Clowns"!

Nice non-rebuttal "rebuttal" there clubber...I wouldn't expect any more from the likes of you...lol...

Not a rebuttal, rather a statement of PROVEN fact, CLOWN (a rude ill-bred person : boor : a fool, jester : a person who habitually jokes and plays the buffoon)! And once again, I will waste no more time on you, so go ahead and use your PATHETIC "run away" line! ENJOY!

"Not a rebuttal, rather a statement of PROVEN fact"

Nope, wrong again old fool. You know who the REAL clowns are here...the ones that you say supposedly know the first thing about economics (supply-side that is)...Gwartney, Stroup, and Lee, period.

"And once again, I will waste no more time on you"

LOL...and how many times have you said that by now old fool?? What a joke you really are...

MISTERGAY LOSES AGAIN!