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”
Personally, I’d like the entirety of the United States to buy local from all types of restaurants instead of letting corporations pave over our regional food cultures.
Those Chinese brands mentioned in this NYT piece are all national/international chains, massive cooperations similar to McDonald and Starbucks, not local mom pop shops…
Sure, but there is a difference letting one corporation overpower the market and supporting a national or even international business.
We got Taco Bell some years back where I live and suddenly all the actually good places died, and sure, some of them were genuine local businesses instead of just corporate chsins, but I’d much rather support anything other than some American super corporation, get a shittier product that’s more expensive, just because they have the money to push their shitty product more than some smaller, albeit corporation shit.
Most American super corporations have enough influence and power as it is. Nothing wrong if we get some competition and variety. Lesser of two evils you know.
If I had my choice I would probably avoid restaurants entirely, but there are a couple of local bakeries I am happy going to.
A pork latte sounds incredibly disgusting, what a stupid idea
At that point I thought it was an Onion article.
“Chinese people like pork, right?! And they like coffee! See where I’m going with this?!!!”
cool, now I have to worry if coffee is hallal or not too
Speak for yourself.
What is it, like broth savory, or some fake candy like flavor?
It tastes like cops, I think.
I hear it also tastes like capitalist
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.
That’s the thing about these parasites… They get paid life changing money upfront.
Zero skin in the game.
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.
Yeah this more an Uplifting News article, but I guess people who still shop at (nonunion) Starbucks should know it.
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
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.
Customers want a reasonably priced and not shitty coffe.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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
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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.
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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
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And you sound like a blocked and reported neurotypical asshat
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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 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’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.
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?
