Friday, May 02, 2008

Starbucks

Some of my friends know I have been avoiding starbucks intentionally the last two years. There prices are ridicules, their coffee really isn't better than anywhere else's (unless you count mcndonolds. Those two have always been the case. The tipping point for me was when I read that a single one of their frapacinos (i forget with kind... something with brownie in the name) had more than a days saturated fat in a single cup. Nobody should allow that kind of thing outside of fairgrounds.

I guess I'm not the only person who is appalled because starbucks announced a 21% earnings decrease from last year. One of the things they cited in their own companies report was that people have realized how unhealthy their drinks are:

"Among many changes Mr. Schultz is expected to unveil in coming months, in addition to cutting costs, is the addition of a line of fruit smoothie drinks, the start of a broad effort to offer healthier drinks and expand beyond coffee beverages."

Consumer power at work. w00t!

2 comments:

Lucas Colvin said...

I think there's probibly an issue of over extension and over saturation as well. A lot of places suffer from a starbucks on every other block.
In a meager defense of their pricing and business model, your really paying for more than coffee when you buy a drink there. A lot of ppl will stay and work or read or talk for hours. I think part of the idea is to provide a place for ppl to talk and think funded by coffee sales.
Still, as well as they seem to be doing, it seems like there's probibly room for lowering the prices a bit. Than again, they're charging what the market will bare.

Patrick Shechet said...

Well, starbucks isn't the only coffee shop that offers a nice sitting area. Other places even have free wifi and cost less (cafe colabria were taylor used to work had better coffee, nicer chairs, free wifi and free live music and their coffee was still more reasonable.) as for th market being able to sustane it. I think the rapidly declining sales numbers indicate that's no the case.