MyStarbucks will not sell Fruit & Cheese.
It’s not a good morning when I walk into Starbucks and the line is out the door. The other day this happened and the lady behind me inches towards me and says “You gotta really want it today, huh?”. Pfft, lady, I want it everyday. But, let me be honest with myself though, and tell you what I really want. I want to walk into a coffee shop— a local coffee shop—like the first coffee shop I ever frequented in Pacific Beach, California. No corporate mugs or teddy bears. No ham sandwiches, glazed donuts, or skinny-2
pump-vanilla-1 pump-caramel-no whip-lattes. It’s such a vague memory now, but I remember coffee, and banana nut bread which came in fresh from a local vendor. It was simple.
This was possibly the downfall of Starbucks: the opening of too many stores, selling too many products, and not concentrating enough on the coffee consumer. But has that changed? With declining sales, and changing CEO hands from Jim Donald to Howard Schultz earlier this year, Starbucks closed its doors for 3 hours on February 25th for a barista training session among 7,1000 stores. What was the purpose? According to The Seattle Times, “The retraining is part of Starbucks’ plan to revive its brand and sales growth, which by one measure sank to an all-time low last quarter.”
Last month Schultz introduced its five-point plan to boost sales and bring back the customer experience. The press release used terms like “revolutionary” and “reinvention”, but what received my attention was the term “online community”.
Category: General Thoughts, Social, Business News
