Good article from the New York Times.
Summary
Starbucks China is losing customers at a very rapid pace. Starbucks corporate executives are angry. Brian Niccol, the new $100 million CEO of Starbucks, sounded the alarm in October, calling the competition “extreme”. For the Chinese Lunar year, Starbucks released a pork flavor latte. It cost more than $9 and was widely seen as a disaster.
Billionaire Howard Schultz, Starbucks’s former CEO, insisted that Starbucks would not enter a price war in China. He claimed “as chinese customers become more knowledgeable about coffee, they will want to upgrade from lower-end or discounted products”
Billionaire Howard Schultz, Starbucks’s former CEO, insisted that Starbucks would not enter a price war in China. He claimed “as chinese customers become more knowledgeable about coffee, they will want to upgrade from lower-end or discounted products”
They got more knowledgeable about coffee which is precisely why they’re choosing places other than starbucks.
I know right? The absolute balls on the guy - anyone that’s had a Starbucks knows that it’s that shit that you move on from. It’s not far removed from a McDonald’s milk shake.
I’m hoping here (UK) and certainly continental Europe we see similar decline in their revenue, and other US companies that forget to pay tax
So I used to think that people hated on starbucks because “hurr durr real men only drink black coffee” and starbucks had extremely sugary and milky drinks that had barely any actual coffee in it. “No problem” I thought, “I like sugary drinks!”. So I went to a starbucks at the shopping mall close to where I live and ordered something and it was literally just a glass of ice cubes with like three sips’ worth of milk and syrup squirted into it. It genuinely felt like the barista forgot one of the ingredients or something. I thought it was a fluke but when I was at that mall at a different time I got a different iced coffee and it was the same stuff: glass full of ice cubes with a squirtling of syrup and milk. What even is the point!?
Here in Copenhagen Starbucks has had trouble opening up shop as well. We have quite a few street corner or park trolly baristas, as well as a local chain called Joe and the Juice.
Starbucks now finally has one or two places locked down over here, but it was pretty funny to see a Starbucks popping up, only for it to be replaced with a Joe and the Juice 6 months later.
If frequent the life out of a Joe’s in that scenario to hammer home the point
lol, Starbucks laments that people actually know about coffee there now.
Nowadays people in China have access to amazingly cheap coffee grinders, because many great ones are made there (DF series, Timemore). Their colonial projects in Africa have resulted in relationships with lots of African coffee farmers. The Chinese province of Yunnan has coffee farming in the mountains and I really want to try some, one of these days. I think burman coffee has some green from there. They also have access to lots of coffee grown in Vietnam where the historical patron client relationship of tribute and suzerainty between the two countries has resulted in lasting coffee relationships. I find that Chinese roasteries I have seen online tend to have a lot of information about their beans published, as well as extensive cupping notes.
Specialty coffee in China is probably a more innovative scene than the West Coast USA one but I don’t have access to everything they’ve got in terms of beans and equipment and vice versa.
pork flavor latte
disaster
That tracks.
Baseball, huh?
To be fair “luckin” and “coti” coffee is genuinely leagues ahead in taste, and not more expensive than Starbucks, so I guess it was coming sooner or later
I don’t agree, they’re mostly fine (Luckin better than Cotti), but Starbucks flavor is stronger and more “dark roast”. Also, their Shanghai coffee roasters facility is in a league of its own!
Having said that. China’s economy is not doing well and consumers are looking to cut back on expenses. I guess Luckin is the “good enough” option?
A pork flavoured latte?
Can’t imagine why they’re losing customers.
Smart folks
Cuz it’s truly legitimately just bad coffee?
And somehow mcdonald’s is expected to be quality barbecue?
None of these chains are any good but we use (or used to use them) for convenience and consistency
Never excellence because we know all the excellent places get bought out and turned into corporate shit factories so we pick the least offensive shit factory that suits our lifestyles and just get on with the business of working in a world that is slowly burning down to feed the greed of a pathologically insatiable owner class
Genuine question - how is starbucks a convenience? It has always striked me as a rich people thing. I can make coffee at home three times as fast and twenty times as cheap while not tasting too much worse. Can’t do that with fast food.
I can make much better coffee at home, and I can take one with me to work in a flask.
But lots of people don’t want to, dont have time to, or can’t make fresh coffee at home and therefore buy it out.
But even if i make it at home, if I want a second coffee during the work day, I’d have to either have instant coffee from work or buy one.
FWIW: My take on Starbucks is that their coffee is a) usually quite average at best, b) variable quality depending upon where you buy it.
Where I live there are lots of alternatives which serve better coffee for about the same price, so I don’t really see any need to use Starbucks.
Last time I had a Starbucks was on a road trip at a motorway service station. It wasn’t very good coffee at all, and afterwards I resented having paid service station prices for a coffee I didn’t enjoy. But in that scenario they have a captive audience.
It has always striked me as a rich people thing
Fastfoods marketing themselves as luxury brand is a relatively recent trend. A decade or so ago starbacks, mcd’s, etc. really were “cheap, fast, tasty”. Fast food used to be a convenience for when you were on road trips and couldn’t make your own food.
All these different fastfood brands built up such a large reputation around themselves that they practically became a part of our collective conscious. At some point they realised that instead of selling food, they could sell their brand. And that’s when it stopped being cheap, stopped being tasty, and generally became a “rich people” thing.
I can’t believe you literally think this is a legit question
Do you carry your home with you in your pocket when you go out? Then maybe write me a three paragraph mini paper on convenience and why gas stations charge ten bucks for a small carton of coffee creamer if you don’t want to be blocked
People like you are the reason the internet is shit nowadays
The fuck are you smoking? Never heard of a thermos can? Small carry bags to fit it and some lunch (sandwich, piece of fruit)?
Or has that become so foreign and alien to you that you just can’t fathom how any of that is possible?
Convenience? The fuck are you talking about?? Have you never heard of soluble coffee? I carry a jar of soluble coffee in my backpack when I go to uni. They have those instant water boiling taps on every floor in my faculty building, I can make myself a mug just like that. Is it good? No. But certainly better than starbucks.
But whatever, I’m not going to argue with someone who’s trying to convince me that the thing I do almost every day with no issues is actually impossible.
No, but I can get cheap and good coffee at gas station, pick up bunch of other things from their store and even fill up my car, all in probably 3-5 minutes, while going to work. That’s the definition of convenience.
Also, you sound autistic.
Huh, this person doesn’t like starbucks
They must be autistic
Peak .world behavior right there
I think they’re referring to their username, not just escalating to 100 out of nowhere.
Saying that, I have “idiot” in some of my usernames and am always surprised when people use it as a comeback. Like, I’m calling myself an idiot, do you think it has any effect when someone else does?
Back on subject, my view for what it’s worth is this shows how different we are - some people want a coffee out, some are prepared to take a ready made one. I don’t really crave coffee out of the house so wouldn’t do either
It was a joke about his nickname.
And you sound like a blocked and reported neurotypical asshat
What do you even mean by blocked lmao… like redditors blocking everyone who disagrees with them?
Starbucks positions itself internationally as an ultra premium brand. I remember visiting one in Thailand and being astounded that the prices were the same as the USA, just converted to bhat. This meant that a single drink could cost like half a day’s wages for a poor Thai person. I imagine the situation in China used to be similar before wages and purchasing power caught up. Now that consumers in China know enough about coffee to tell that Starbucks is crap, they won’t pay American prices for it any more, and it’s got Starbucks sweating.
And Fosters positioned itself as a premium import beer when the real reason they sold it here was no one in Australia would touch the stuff
Marketing is lying and we shouldn’t let them get away with it by calling it positioning
They sell it as a premium product in the US? That is funny.
Hmm, it was less a ‘premium’ and more it was selling the rough, laid back, no bullshit lifestyle as presented by Paul Hogan in Crocodile Dundee
So it wasn’t really marketed as a ‘quality’ beer as much as a personality accessory
Most of the world jokes about American beer being basically water and they aren’t wrong, but man Fosters has even less body than coors light
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McDonald’s coffee is much better than Starbucks. Still not great, but better.
true but that is more of a happy accident than product excellence in the fast food market
I’m not so sure about that, they studied Starbucks’ quasi-monopoly for quite some time and then decided to beat them with better coffee.
So at least they had a plan, unlike KFC with their “me too” approach. That stuff is so bad I’ll rather risk headaches on a 10h flight than to refuel with that garbage.
I didn’t know about the US but in Canada McDonald’s uses the supplier that used to supply Tim Hortons back before their coffee was enshittified by the corporate grindhouse, which makes McDonald’s coffee about the best option short of true coffee houses
I should know this?
Exactly what I was thinking. Why should I give a shit that Starbucks is failing in China? I didn’t even know they were in China.
Because it represents the tipping point where America lost its dominance. Starbucks doesn’t sell coffee but an affordable access to experiencing the American way of life.
If Starbucks loses its appeal it means that people stop looking up to America. Students won’t dream of becoming a scientist in America, business men won’t long for participating in the American economy, consumers don’t care about buying American products for being American.
All American products from now on have to compete on quality and service. This changes the value of the products and the value of the work that American workers deliver.
Yeah this more an Uplifting News article, but I guess people who still shop at (nonunion) Starbucks should know it.
Right? Post this in news this isn’t a YSK, and the OP fails to explain WHY YSK
Starbucks coffee tastes like my shit smells.
Funny enough, the most expensive coffee you can buy is made in elephant dung. Probably still tastes better than Starbucks coffee.
Its smell reminds me of cat shit.
That’s the top of the line
NSFW: civet making a cat chocolate mocha
Oh hey, glad the Chinese figured out Starbucks is bad.
I too prefer locally owned coffed stores!
… Too bad I’m from Seattle, and Starbucks pretty much killed them all.
Fuck Starbucks.
They appropriated the ‘chill local coffee shop you can hang out at all day’, ran most of those out of business, first in Seattle, then nationwide, then all over the world, and now they just run a coffee themed fast food empire.
Fuck. Starbucks.
Pork Lattes for the Chinese, coffee flavored milkshakes for Americans.
What a fucking joke.
Just came back from Seattle and drank coffee from various coffee places that were not Starbucks every single day.
Would you stop clouding the narrative? We’re trying to hate spiral over here
They failed miserably in Australia as well.
They did, but somehow they’re managing to start making a comeback with their drive through stores. People that want super convenience will put up with a worse coffee for it.
Local companies are out-competing the multinational on price, quality and local knowledge. Isn’t this the free market working as intended?
Coffee culture in China is on another level. They have fast coffee like Luckin, Cotti, and dozens more brands, all of which are better and have more variety than Starbucks, and they have high end coffees with artisan beans, and all of them are cheaper than Starbucks. They’re not going to win there, for sure.
If Starbucks cannot compete on price, it is nothing. They failed in Australia for being worse than what we already have here.
That last line from the ex CEO is so stupid, Starbucks is the lower end coffee shop, it’s the McDonald’s of coffee. Anyone who cares about quality coffee would prefer local roasters with fresh coffee anyways
