Starbucks, worried that McDonald’s and other chain restaurants are taking away their business (and since their stock is down about $17 per share, it’s a valid concern) is testing a bottomless $1 cup of coffee in their Seattle area stores. Currently, their least expensive coffee is an 8-ounce cup which is not refillable, and costs $1.50.
Personally, I think Starbucks needs to make better tasting coffee if they want to compete. I can get a better tasting cup’o'joe at McDonald’s, 7-11, and pretty much anywhere. Most people are not interested in Starbucks’ “cafe du jour”. When the average coffee drinker wants coffee, they want just regular ol’ coffee, fresh and hot. Yet Starbucks does not even offer regular coffee, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that it would eventually harm a coffee shop to not offer what the average coffee drinker wants.
Starbucks made its reputation upon overworked yuppies like me going into their shop and buying something more exotic than could be purchased elsewhere. They expanded too quickly – in some places, you can find a Starbucks across the street from another Starbucks – and now their over-penetration in the market has come back to bite them, because their brand name has become a joke. It was completely foreseeable, though.
Many people originally went to Starbucks for the novelty of it. Unfortunately the novelty eventually wears off, and all you have left is a coffee joint which doesn’t even serve regular coffee. Starbucks has lost my business, because they simply don’t offer the quality one would expect from a coffee bar. Their competition has picked up the customers they lost, by being more attuned to their customer’s taste preferences.
The most annoying thing by far about Starbucks, however, is their subtle snobbery. I, for one, absolutely refuse to speak Starbuckian. When I ask for a large hot chocolate, I don’t need them to tell me that it’s a venti hot chocolate. I am very well aware that they call it “venti”, but I just refuse to play their little game. It’s like walking in on an inside joke, and I find it insulting. What makes them think customers like to be corrected about something as mundane as the size they are ordering? It is irrelevant to the order, since they know the meaning of “large” as well as I do. I therefore find it extremely annoying.
If Starbucks wants to survive and thrive, they need to drop the pretentiousness and start offering what customers want. Lowering their prices is a step in the right direction, but it’s simply not enough. They need to offer what the average coffee drinker wants, plain and simple, and the fact that their competition is harming their business should tell them it’s about more than just price. If they can’t figure that out, they deserve to go out of business.
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Absolutely. The elitism wore off. Once i tried to order a Valencia Mocha there, and the lady said “Well, do you want a Mocha Valencia, or a Valencia Mocha?” in a very angry tone. I was educated that day to the difference (there actually is one). And they wouldn’t let me say “skim”, they’d correct me: “nonfat.” Screw you Starbucks, the coffee I make at home tastes better.