Comments on: Authenticity at Starbucks: Coffee and People, Yes. The Corporation, No

By: Bill Canaday

Bill Canaday — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 08:33:15 +0000

I find it hard to get excited about $4 a cup coffee. For that much money I can buy 5 cups of a lesser brew and get the full-on caffeine jitters. I bought coffee at Starbucks exactly once, to see what the buzz was about. I was underwhelmed.

By: Ryan G

Ryan G — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 10:07:52 +0000

Customers are generally seen as ‘The Mugs’ with most major corps. The shareholders are king.

By: Bob Massey

Bob Massey — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 12:12:59 +0000

I fully agree with you about almost everything you wrote, especially about the need for corporate authenticity and the likely fallout from loyal customers (I have a friend who figured he and his wife easily spend $3,000 a year there!) … and Starbucks has certainly had its share of critics about its expansion strategy (at one point, the satirical newspaper The Onion featured a headline “New Starbucks opens in the rest room of an existing Starbucks”), which seems to me a huge gamble on an economy staying up enough to support (let’s face it) highly overpriced coffee. BUT what I do not hear factored into this equation are sales figures. Do you KNOW if the surviving Starbucks is higher-performing financially or not – in spite of its location? Are the doomed stores profitable or losing money? Was it a capricious decision to decide so many stores have to be closed, so they arbitrarily chose to keep the least likely producer alive – in spite of sales figures? I would be interested to know how they decided on which locations to close, since none are closing where I live, in Port Charlotte, where we have one Starbucks in our one-and-only true mall, and another inside a Target store.

By: Eli

Eli — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 14:33:01 +0000

Hmm…
Walmart:Thrift Shop::Starbucks:Cafe –> You shopped at the Corp. store instead of the local shop, enjoy the consequences.