“Isn’t Starbucks always free?”
Posted Thursday, March 8th, 2007 at 11:55 pm
I just read a post-title on a friends blog about “free Starbucks next week.” Before reading the post, I wasn’t sure what the title meant.
Was this a call to rise up in armed revolution in order to set Starbucks free from some type of an enslavement?
Or was it referring to the cover price that people seem obliged to pay in order to utilize a simple table & chair (to which I thought “Starbucks has always been ‘free’…“)?
Then I realized that the freedom of which the post spoke - free tall drip next Thursday, March 15th at any Starbucks - and thought to myself - “If only I enjoyed Starbucks for the coffee…”
March 9th, 2007 at 7:20 am
I know we’ve been around this before, but just want to point out that Starbucks is not a library nor a home. It is a business that aims to make a profit, so it is appropriate to purchase (or to use your terms, obliged to pay). I have no idea why I’m defending Starbucks, but there you have it.
March 11th, 2007 at 10:13 pm
Starbucks sells a commodity (normally low profit margins on commodities) but created large profit margins by creating a sense of a funky coffee house catering to people ‘who get it.’ That’s why they can charge the prices they do.
Lots of us want a place that doesn’t feel like a library or our own home. Starbucks figured that out and has mass produced a middle class man’s Parisian cafe.
When they started out in Seattle they were actually pretty cutting edge and did offer a real coffee house experience. Those days are long gone.
I think they’ve done a pretty good job of retaining that feel for a long time even while outexpanding Walmart. I mean that as a sincere compliment. I think the only rule governing Starbucks’ expansion is that they can’t open a new Starbucks franchise inside of another Starbucks. You’ve gotta have marketing geniuses at work to convice people your stores are cutting edge when you’re more common than McDonalds.
Starbucks was one of the first businesses to build an empire on purely cultural and emotional ‘value added.’ Their coffee is nothing special nor is their service. They sell atmosphere.
But it’s a pretty darn good atmosphere for an assembly line. And I mean that as a sincere compliment too.