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”
Well, of course. Putting geopolitics aside, Starbucks coffee is overpriced and not good. I wonder what the CEO who commutes via private jet to work will take away from this. Likely nothing.
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.
Right? Post this in news this isn’t a YSK, and the OP fails to explain WHY YSK
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
As someone who doesn’t like coffee, I like starbucks specifically because it’s basically coffee flavored milkshake.
But I also go like once or twice a year when I am on a trip so I am not exactly helping their bottom line.
countries with good coffee are immune to Starbucks.
Your neighbors pay your salary. The more money in your community the more there will be for your salary.
Sometimes you’re likely to want to get groceries.
Sometimes you’re likely to want to go to restaurants.
Sometimes you’re likely to need to get housewares.
Sometimes you’re likely to need services from plumbers or mechanics or electricians.
If you choose your local community, that money stays in your community, and it’s likely to make it back to you.
If you buy from a company headquartered in a different city, the money you spend goes to that other city.
So next time you’re buying a burger and fries, check out your local restaurants.
I don’t disagree but a lot of chains rely on franchisers, who can still be a neighbour. Also the employees can still be your neighbour. Also the supplier can be your neighbor. Buying local is definitely a good choice, likely the better choice, but not all ‘companies headquartered in a different city’ are equally evil. Also because economy of scale is a thing. That’s why you’re not talking about ‘companies headquartered in another street’ for example.
All true! But the profits still get siphoned off elsewhere. My Lowe’s employs us locals, but the hardware store downtown doesn’t exist to provide shareholder value.
Again, you’re right. Non all non-local sellers are evil capitalists, hell bent on making us poor.
We were a whole lot poorer when everything was only regional. We need a balance. We will be a whole lot poorer and belligerent as a species if we are totally insular.
We are actually pretty close to being able to defeat the resource scarcity of our planetary prison. Gravitational differentiation is a bitch for sequestering almost all of Earth’s heavy resources after the Theia collision and the last time the entire surface of Earth was molten. The continents are like the flux or froth that rises to the surface. Nearly all of the heavy elements on the surface of the planet are from astroid collisions that have happened since the continents formed. The thing is, there are these things called m-type asteroids that are remnants of planetesimal cores broken apart in the early formation of the Sol system. Some of these large m-type asteroids are in near Earth orbits. These are differentiated, aka concentrated with rare elements. Fully accessing just one of these has a potential to completely upend what wealth means and all of our financial institutions. It could easily dwarf all human resource wealth that has ever been accessed on the surface of Earth. Accessing this kind of resource wealth will drive us into space in the future at large scales. We already have the materials science to build O’Neill cylinders that have Earth like centrifugal gravity and are 9.1 km in diameter by ~30 kilometers long. The scientific papers establishing this were published by Dr. O’Neill in the 1970s. The only thing holding us back is the will and the resources. We only get to that future if we put aside tribalism and work together.
We don’t need this dichotomous oversimplification of all or nothing. We need balance and we need to stop the culture of unregulated unethical capitalism. Capitalism must be regulated like the drug addicted STI ridden whore that it is and handled like a worthless ragdoll because this is what it really is. Corporations are disposable worthless things. They are not people. They should be the homeless beggars. They are the fodder on the front lines of conflict because corporations and companies are not people and killing them is a great and valiant thing. New companies can fill the voids. This is the whole point in capitalism. The problem is that we have let companies rule over people and that is feudalism. It is not a democracy at all. Whores cannot lead or rule us or we fall apart. They have no ethics, no values. They would just as soon kill you, but that is okay only because they are not people and they must die with extreme prejudice. Businesses have no rights except to be useful for a time. Being established as a business must become a liability not an asset because it is within real open market capitalism. No one gets all the gambles right every time unless they are cheating and in both cases they must die.
Big corporate just siphon money to another country and rich executives. Supporting local business, means the money stay local and they spend it back in the same community that spent it on them.
Plus the Star Bucks coffee is shit.
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.
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!?
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 don’t call it Charbucks for nothing
Local companies are out-competing the multinational on price, quality and local knowledge. Isn’t this the free market working as intended?
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
Starbucks coffee is shit anyway. Support your local roasters and shops, or roast your own if you have the means. It’s a great and delicious hobby.
Coincidentally when I saw this post I was in the middle of roasting a batch.Love my Gene Cafe!
It’s a great roaster!
pork flavor latte
disaster
That tracks.
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
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
