Barely two years I read Joseph Michelli’s bestseller “The Starbucks Experience: 5 Principles for Turning Ordinary Into Extraordinary“. Barely two years ago Starbucks was devouring competing coffee chains like Coffee People and Seattle’s Best Coffee with the zeal of a fat man at an all you can eat buffet. Barely two years ago Starbucks could do no wrong.
How is it possible that, in those two short years, Starbucks has gone from being one of the darlings of Wall Street to announcing some pretty substantial layoffs? Sure, it’s easy to blame a sour economy. Fewer people are spending the same $8.35 per day at their favorite Starbucks location (up from $8.05 just four months ago and $7.35 when Joseph Michelli’s book debuted). But really, what the fuck happened? How can a company, in just two years time with very low overhead and a disturbing idea of price inflation, go from being on top of the world to nixing more than a thousand jobs?!
Simple. The joke that everyone tells about the Pacific Northwest (especially Seattle) – you know, the one that suggests that you can spit from the front door of one Starbucks location and hit another Starbucks with the loogie? It’s literally come true. Who the hell needs TWO Starbucks locations within walking distance of each other?
- Pioneer Place Mall : 2 locations
- Washington Square Mall : 2 locations
- Lloyd Center Mall : 2 locations
Did it ever occur to anyone at Starbucks that maybe, just maybe, having multiple stores in the same freakin’ shopping mall was a little bit overkill? Did it ever occur to these idiots that if you open franchise stores in every damn Safeway and Fred Meyer around that you don’t need another one only a block away? Last summer I bought a Venti Mocha at a Starbucks downtown and by the time I was done with it I had walked past another 7 Starbucks locations on my way home.
Around here I think you could cut the number of Starbucks stores in half and no one would go under-caffeinated. It’s sad that 1,000+ people are going to lose their jobs but it’s even more sad that it was all avoidable.
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I totally miss Coffee People. (sniff) (sniff)
There is an SBC at PSU still, go there all the time.
Me too, but Seattle’s Best is actually owned by Starbucks – has been since they bought it in 2003.