A while back, there was a thread about Starbucks. Most people talked about how there isn’t one within so many miles or there are 30 within 40ft of their house.
I was proud to think that there was no Starbucks nearby, not even close at all. I learned today that our Kroger is adding on (I knew this because there was a good bit of construction going on) but I thought they might just being making the store bigger.
Darnit! I was completely wrong! They are building a damn Starbucks in my town! I know, it’s not the end of the world, but c’mon! WHY???
They just added a third Starbucks on the corner where I work. They justify this because one is in a grocery store (Safeway), one is a stand-alone sit-down place, and one is a drive-thru. Three. One corner. In a town of 80,000 people.
That’s exactly what I was wondering. I mean, really – Starbucks isn’t exactly noted as a money-losing endeavor. So if there are three on one corner, they must expect to sell enough coffee to support all three. The mind boggles.
Of course, I say that as I reach for my coffee cup. Mine’s free office swill, though.
I guess the three serve a totally different clientele. Someone in a hurry won’t go to the sit-down one, and definitely won’t go into the Safeway. It’s the drive thru for them.
People shopping at Safeway will get coffee while they shop. I can’t imagine anyone going in there just to get a coffee, so that Starbucks is probably only getting shoppers coming in and no outside traffic.
People wanting to go “out for coffee” will go to the sit-down one.
Still sounds like a hell of a lot of Starbuckses to me, but I can see how they’d still be profitable.
I’m curious, though, is there no other chain that’s similar to Starbucks out there? Fancy frothy specialty coffees and overpriced muffins, things like that? I ask because here in Montreal we have a lot of coffee shops, but they’re all different kinds. So you’ll have 3 coffee shops on a corner but they’re different. Stuff like Second Cup, A.L. Van Houtte, Cafe Depot, Presse Cafe, and yeah, Starbucks. Breaks up the monotony a little.
Coffee is a pretty profitable business, and can support a high density of coffee shops. But I have read that part of Starbuck’s strategy is to deliberately oversaturate a market with franchisees in order to make sure that they get every possible coffee dollar. Since they use franchising, it’s no big deal to them if one of three Starbucks on one corner goes bust, but they’d be kicking themselves if Joe’s Coffee were to establish themselves in competition with two existing Starbucks - that’s extra latte sales they’re missing out on. So why not set up as many as possible?