Unfettered Blather

Starbuck’s falls on hard times

One of the problems with being an icon among the trendy crowd is that you are surrounded by pricks. I have nothing against Starbucks, I generally do have an issue with a lot of the people that frequent Starbucks for something more than a cup of coffee. I am just not a trendy guy. I am fairly stylish I suppose but trendy is an alligence to a shallow way of life that I always found empty and trite.

Note some of the following and might I point out, meaningless comments from the above article:

“Once it went corporate, it wasn’t Starbucks anymore.”

“They’ve commoditized cafe culture, which is why I don’t go”

And my personal favorite. Take note of the highlighted words:

“The company that began as innovative is now known for consistency and convenience, she said. “To me, that’s a huge step down,” she said. “You’ve built your franchise on people who are coming in because they know exactly what they want.”

These comments makes the case for exactly why I abhor people that build their lives on the “scene”. Lets look at the last comment first since it is the most relevant to the complete lack of sense these people make.

“The company that began as innovative is now known for consistency and convenience” - This is probably the most concise definition of exactly what a good business should be. You take an innovative idea, make it consistent and easy for the consumer to access. She is faulting Starbucks for having a good business model apparently.

When you go from being a local or regional concern to something national or global you have to maintain consistency of product. What creates your success is that very consistency, nobody wants to guess what your product will taste like each time they visit. Can a company with thousands of stores grow without a product that people expect to find each time they visit? It makes perfect business sense. What about producing the same product to ship to the various locations?

Franchise products are built on a proven concepts with a consistent product and a quality people enjoy. How else do you become a franchise? Expectations are what keep companies like this going. Starbucks has create beverage titles that have become part of the national vocabulary. Thats an impressive feat.

This is every business owner’s dream on several key levels but to these folks, thats a bad thing

The final half plumbs the murkiest depths of sheer, obvious stupidity mixed with a heavy dose of crass:

“You’ve built your franchise on people who are coming in because they know exactly what they want.” This is probably my favorite point. She is actually faulting Starbucks for appealing to consumers on a broad level. This woman actually holds them in disdain for selling to “regular” people.

I’m actually dying to ask, how do you build a franchise on products nobody has expectations for?

The franchise comment tips the hand of the lack of intelligence, the previous ones about polluting popular culture are nebulous reasons that nobody ever seeks to demand an answer for. Can someone explain to me how popularity ruins intagibles like “attitude” and atmosphere? Why is success such a terrible thing for trendy products? I’m serious, I want real answers to this schlock because we are letting people talk in euphemisms and I cannot stand it anymore.

I can actually understand the obsessive approach of trying to look for ideas the rest of the world is not doing, but this is just being counterculture for the sheer sake of it. They can’t even enjoy a cup of sugar laden coffee unless it comes from some establishment that meets their social criteria.

The demonization is something I will never grasp. If you want to be a slave to trends, go ahead, but spare us the smug crap that flies in the face of all common sense. No business wants to be a slave to a small crowd of people as fickle as these social harpies. Eventually these jerkoffs will tire of you and when they do you better have average joes, working moms and white collar folks lined up to take their place. you will never be a success by appealing to the fringe.

Starbucks rode their wave as long as they could and now we are seeing a correction in their market. Try to think of the quantity of Starbucks merchandise available, movie tie-ins, parodies and products in your supermarket. They have been a huge hit. The problem is they overvalued their product because up until recently, people were willing to pay their prices to be a part of the experience. Nothing lasts forever and their are plenty of competing brands and off the shelf alternatives to their expensive products.

Every trend suffers a backlash and the counterculture crowd who populated them making off-color political jokes while they sat on their laptops didn’t help them either. Starbucks isn’t going anywhere they aren’t going to go away anymore than Dunkin Donuts or Krispy Kreme did during their inflated stages. Starbucks will adapt. Will they remain a viable entity? Thats a question I don’t think we will see answered in less than a decade.

At the end of the day there are plenty of “over the counter” trendy types that will buy their morning frappuccino to keep Starbucks floating on a river of cash, but the lessons about appealing to the most fickle of consumers is self-evident.

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