In the third unit, the AP Microeconomic class touched on the existence of market structures. The four main market structures are perfect competition, monopoly, monopolistic competition, and oligopoly. For this project, I picked Shake Shack as the specific case study and focused on Monopolistic competition as the market structure.

Introducing the history of Shake Shack to try and figure out the reason behind its success, The brand started from an unexpectedly popular hot dog cart in Madison Square Park in 2001, to a Shake Shack kiosk in 2004, to the realization that they had a reproducible concept, by 2014 Shake Shack had 63 Shacks in nine countries and 34 cities. In modern days, the brand itself became an international fast food place with shops open in numerous countries. If only counting the ones I visited, the number would be more than 5, like China, Singapore, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and so on.

The defining difference between Shake Shack and other fast food brands is the existence of food quality. For example, the meat Shake Shack uses is from one of the best meat suppliers in the United States, named Pat LaFrieda Meat Purveyors. Another obvious example would be the taste of the Shake, it has been voted as one of the most creamy shakes from a fast food place by Insider. The difference in food quality showed the differentiator between Shake Shack and other companies in the industry. As one of the most significant characteristics of a monopolistic company, each company in the market produces similar but differentiated products. In order to further enhance the differentiation, I picked two other brands in the industry and did a cross-comparison. I chose McDonald’s as it is the world's largest fast-food restaurant chain and Burger King is the second-largest fast-food restaurant chain in the United States. Focusing on the signature burger, the price comparison showed the product Shake Shack offered is different from the other two fast food chains. This followed the steps of the demand in the market as people’s craving for fast food made the items range from a 50-dollar burger in the restaurant to the $3.99 Big Mac. Different items had been created in order to satisfy people’s needs, considering fast food restaurants aren’t necessarily about being “fast” anymore, it's more about the actual food now.

Following along on the trail of using market patterns to explain the advantages of Shake Shack, I first looked at the Burger market in the United States, as it is the biggest food market existing surpassing Pizza and Mexican food. Then, I dug deeper into the case and checked out the Fast Food market in the United States with a market size of $331.41 billion as of 2022. At last, to truly connect the cause and results, I decided to connect the wage increase rate in the United States with people’s craving for more “upscale” fast food.