Starbucks Has a Pumpkin Spice Latte Problem in China
www.nytimes.com
For years, Starbucks was the dominant coffee chain in China. Now rivals offering local flavors and cheaper prices are crushing the company’s bottom line in its second-largest market.

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”

  • renzev@lemmy.world
    1·
    18 days ago

    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.