Who doesn’t love a good donut? Whether it’s for breakfast or for a late-night snack, donuts shops are a highly-frequented venue.
Dunkin Donuts and Krispy Kreme are two of the most well-known businesses that focus on donuts. Dunkin Donuts has recently broadened its scope to provide foods that are not entirely made of carbohydrates and moved into Starbucks’ territory, while Krispy Kreme continues to focus on the donuts. Dunkin Donuts has more than 9,700 locations, with nearly 6,700 of those locations in the United States. Krispy Kreme has about 615 stores, with around half of those based in the United States.
Total Check-Ins: The number of check-ins that each brand has received across all its venues.
Dunkin Donuts: 319,667
Krispy Kreme: 19,848
With more than 10x as many stores as Krispy Kreme, Dunkin Donuts holds a significant edge in the number of check-ins. This isn’t surprising.
Total People: The total number of people that have checked-in. Unique people will be fewer than total check-ins, as people may check-in more than once at a location.
Dunkin Donuts: 119,587
Krispy Kreme: 12,046
Again, Dunkin Donuts holds a significant advantage in the number of people that have checked-in at its locations.
Looking at check-ins per user will provide some context around just how loyal these brands customers are. (Higher is better.)
Dunkin Donuts: 2.67
Krispy Kreme: 1.65
Use the check-in per user metric, Dunkin Donuts is receiving more than one check-in per user more than Krispy Kreme. While the sample size for Krispy Kreme is small, is this a sign that Dunkin Donuts strategy of offering a broad product line is successful in creating repeat customers?
Customer Overlap
Using detailed check-in analysis, we can also compare each brand’s customer and determine the overlap in their customer bases.
Dunkin Donuts: 0.9%
Krispy Kreme: 3.0%
3 percent of Krispy Kreme’s customers have also checked-in at Dunkin Donuts, while less than 1 percent of Dunkin Donuts customers have checked-in at Krispy Kreme. Again, this supports the theory that Dunkin Donuts broad product line is attracting more customers.
Finally, let’s take a look at average Social Influence, which is an indicator of how influential a brand’s customers are in the social web. (Max score is 10.)
Dunkin Donuts: 1.9
Krispy Kreme: 2.0
Both brands have virtually identical social influence scores. With Dunkin Donuts data sample being significantly larger than Krispy Kreme, it is an attribute to Dunkin Donuts that its social influence score is higher than the average of 1.7.
Check-Ins by Hour
It is also insightful to review each brand’s check-ins by hour. With Dunkin Donuts we see a huge spike during the morning hours and then a gradual tail off throughout the day.
With Krispy Kreme, we do see a small spike in the morning, but we also see another spike between 8p and 10p. Krispy Kreme is also known as a place where people can visit for late night donuts and coffee, and this is one unique differentiator for Krispy Kreme.
Closing Thoughts
While both brands may serve donuts, Krispy Kreme and Dunkin Donuts are vastly different. Dunkin Donuts is generating an extremely high number of check-ins, while Krispy Kreme’s lower numbers are a reflection of its niche. Dunkin Donuts’ strategy of offering more than just donuts appears to be paying off, while Krispy Kreme is showing success in attracting customers during off-peak hours.
What do you think? How can Dunkin Donuts compete with Starbucks? How can Krispy Kreme break out and generate more check-ins?
Read more: Check-Ins for Breakfast – Comparing IHOP and Waffle House