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Starbucks Coffee Company: Retail Successes and Challenges

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| RETAILING CASE ASSIGNMENT |

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CASE ANALYSIS:
STARBUCKS COFFEE COMPANY: RETAIL SUCCESSES & CHALLENGES

STARBUCKS COFFEE COMPANY: RETAIL SUCCESSES & CHALLENGES
Starbucks Corporation is a leading international coffee and coffeehouse retail chain based in Seattle, Washington, USA. Starbucks owns and operates over 6,000 retail stores and is the largest coffeehouse company in the world. Its annual sales in 2006 were $7.8 billion and it employed 140,000 people in 39 countries.
Entrepreneur Howard Schultz joined the company in 1982 as Director of Marketing. He went on a buying trip to Milan, Italy. After the trip Howard Schultz advised that the company should sell coffee and espresso drinks as well as …show more content…

Although coffee beverages are standardized across outlets, food offerings vary from store to store. 3) Pricing – with regards to pricing, Starbucks’ product pricing strategy is price skimming in which it offers a premium product (coffee) for a premium price. It is all due to Starbucks strong commitment to high quality products and a high level of customer service. 4) Stores and visual merchandising – Starbucks stores are spacious so that customers can wander around the store, drinking their coffee and considering the purchase of coffee paraphernalia ranging from coffee beans to brushes for cleaning coffee grinders to $1,000 home cappuccino machines.

“Starbucks should be a place, an experience, tied up in inspired thought.”
Scott Bedbury, Vice President of Marketing

Designs vary in any particular Starbucks store to match the local market, the typical Starbucks store works around a planned mix of organic and manufactured components: light wood tones at the counters and signage areas, brown bags, polished dark marble countertops, glass shelves, thin modern white track lighting, and pure white cups. 5) Customer service – customer service is promoted by training new hires to deal with customer complaints immediately. To emphasize their responsibility in pleasing customers, baristas (Italian for bartender) are presented with scenarios describing customers complaining about beans that were ground

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