Starbucks’ Strategy

Starbucks was conscious of China’s economic and financial challenges and the fact that the average Chinese earns $500 a month and drinks just three cups of coffee a year was a major challenge to overcome. How many $4 cups of coffee do they actually want or can they afford? The Chinese are among the toughest lot in the world to convince on the price-value relationship. They are very cost-conscious and look for value in whatever they pay for.

I set out to find a place to begin my observations, not knowing what to fully expect, what I may find. So I decided to look around at what is close to my home that isn’t a place I frequent or have even visited at all. Then it came to me, the Starbucks that is only about a mile away is a perfect place for me to observe subjects that I would consider different from myself, seeing as how I consider such obscene prices for coffee ridiculous. Starbucks is a very popular chain of coffee vendors that describe their product as more about quality than what Americans are used to in typical coffee joints.

Starbucks operates in 65 countries offering specialty coffee, tea, and food items to patrons through company-operated stores (Starbucks Corporation, 2014). Moreover, Starbucks sells trademarked items such as coffee grounds and pre-packaged drinks through grocery stores and similar channels (2014). In 2014, there were 21,366 stores globally (14,191 in America) (2014).

* Starbucks expanded to pursue sales of products in a variety of distribution channels and market segments. Products were marketed to restaurants, airlines, hotels, universities, hospitals, business offices, country clubs, and select retailers. In the airline industry, Starbucks coffee was served in flights United Airlines and United Airlines. Packets of Starbucks coffee along with coffee making equipment were made available in each room in Hyatt, Hilton, Sheraton, Radisson and Westin Hotels. Coffee service was also provided in several Wells Fargo banks in California. Foodservice distributors such as Sysco

Starbucks started by just making and selling coffee and coffee making equipment but now they sell everything from thermoses to delicious frappachinos. They currently have over 22,000 stores around the world. They’ve recently opened stores in panama Colombia, Brunei, India, Costa Rica, Monaco and Norway. The company is a publicly traded company on the stock market. Starbucks specializes in food service and product supplies.

Different local reactions of new coming Starbucks from Shanghai and Bloomington reveal contradicting cultural understanding.

Starbucks is no doubt a phenomenon in the United States, but the brand wants to expand globally. Opening chains in various global locations such as Japan, Vienna, England; Starbucks wants to reach out to the coffee loving fans everywhere. Nevertheless opening chains globally is not that simple. There are many uncontrollable factors Starbucks need to focus on to make sure they are making profit as well has abiding by the country’s laws and regulations. Going global takes a lot of market research to make sure that the brand will be successful even with uncontrollable factors. Controllable factors can be tailored to fit the needs of each country. Starbucks has to find the happy medium so they don’t lose their identity overseas.

Starbucks management announced its intention to double the number of retail stores and increase the number of customers to all stores. Starbucks had added 1672 stores during 2005. It continued to open new stores with 2199 openings in 2006 and 2571 openings in 2007. Earnings per share grew from 61 cents per share 87 cents per share over the period of 2005-2007. At the close of the 2007 fiscal year, the management was forecasting the opening of an additional 2500 stores in 2008.

Today, Starbucks coffee an American global coffee company has 21,160 stores in 63 countries. Coffee shop that scored top rating for customer satisfaction in 2008 American customer satisfaction index. With its practices, Starbucks take advantage in the five stages in consumer purchase decision making process. Next, Starbucks’ marketing strategy

As already stated, Starbucks can offer cheaper products but it might have to sacrifice the quality. This is the main socio-cultural challenge that the start-up faces. It will expand consumer base to include the buyers from the lower and the middle-income tiers.

Starbucks grew so much in the last couple years. The company now has over 21,537 stores in 64 different countries. They have 12,000in the United states, 1716 in the country of China, 1330 in the country of Canada and 808 in the United Kingdom, this is just a small list of countries that have Starbucks in their country there are many more countries. Starbucks partners with other brands and companies to keep themselves relevant in their industry. (Loxel 2015) The brands in which they’ve partnered with include Teavana, Tazo, and Seattle’s Best Coffee, Starbucks VIA, Starbucks Refreshers, Evolution Fresh, La Boulange and Verismo. Starbucks employees over 182,000 employees and has an estimated revenue of $14.89 billion. Over the last 20 years, the company has expanded rapidly with an average of two new stores opening every day.

Making their chain stores very traditional and fitting with the local culture. Surprisingly Starbucks charges as much as 50% more for some of its products in China than in the U.S., the U.K. and India, but yet it is still a huge success, this is because the business catered well for the needs and adapted. Carrying a Starbucks cup is seen as a status symbol, a way to demonstrate sophistication and the capability to afford a personal luxury for the up-and-coming middle class in China. This links into the brand recognition that Starbucks has created for itself and shows how they carefully targeted their products at the new middle class, it is estimated that it's more than 300 million, already larger than the entire population of the United States. This middle class is about 25% of the total Chinese population and as Starbucks has such a recognisable brand people are more liable to visit the store.

As Starbucks competes in the coffee shop industry, they need to be aware of a few factors that affect their operating environment. These factors consist of Trump’s Import Tax Laws, JAB, and New Emerging Technology. Trump is planning to sign a law to decrease tax deductions on imports, which would make importing more expensive. One of Starbuck’s biggest raw material consumption is coffee beans, which are imported from countries like Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, México, Panamá, Perú and Puerto Rico (Fact Sheet: Starbucks Latin America). Therefore, this would affect Starbucks first hand since the environment for growing coffee beans is better in other countries than it is

One company that has been particularly successful in creating an overall company image in my option has been Starbucks. They have been able to maintain a dominant position in today’s market. Where in the morning most of our society needs a good cup of coffee in order to start their day. At one point, we looked at Starbucks as a high-end marketer. A sort of club to belong to. However, things managed to change in the recent years where a 4.00 cup of coffee was becoming a luxury items. This became known as the Coffee Wars. Starbuck had to now face competition from the fast food world. Which was McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts. They started to look at this market as an opening to gain more customers. They started to offer their

Starbucks was born in 1971 as a small coffee shop. With the management of Howard Schultz, Starbucks turned into a business legend and built a kingdom of coffee. It was dominate specialty-coffee brand in North America. By mid-2002, the company was serving 20 million unique consumers in more than 5000 stores all over the world. It developed at a very high speed. The gross profit of the company increased from 730.2 million to 1938.9 million in about 5 years (1998-2002). Its retail business expansion was also amazing. In 1998 there were 1755 Starbucks’ stores in North America while the numbers increased to 4574 in 2002. It was also true of its international expansion. There were only 131 stores in 1998. But in 2002