The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy defines the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as ‘a bunch of mindless jerks who’ll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes’
Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
In what will be a surprise only to those who are simply not paying attention, Starbucks is losing business. Bad. Not only do they face stiff competition from upstarts like McDonalds and Dunkin’ Donuts, the economy, a bad rep on the environment (and labor, and relations with impoverished countries, and…), strong arm business tactics, or the fact most of the customers are obnoxious prats, but as far as I am concerned their products are simply awful.
I never got back to sleep yesterday, so I got breakfast at a local diner and wasted time by thumbing through a copy of the local newspaper. As I was reading a story about Starbucks caught my eye:
Starbucks Tests $2.50 Premium Coffee to Boost Sales
Here is everything you need to know about the story:
Starbucks Corp. is experimenting with a $2.50 cup of coffee that would add a new, premium product to help fight the first drop in U.S. customer visits in its 37- year history.
That’s it? That’s the grand plan? Charge more? Brilliant!
It would by silly to suggest that this is all they are trying to do, but the reality is that I do not really care what they are trying to do because I simply do not care about the company. But I cannot contain the incredulous feeling I had when I read this story. Starbucks has been on an obnoxious run, overcharging for horrid beverages and finding new ways to torture people with unwanted and probably undesirable concoctions. And when things go bad, one of the options they turn to is .. charging more?
Okay, so I lied, there is a little more to this story. Apparently, this absurdly priced “cup” of coffee is supposed to taste better. I can not tell if this is an admission that their coffee is horrid, but this quote from some random financial analyst sure makes me think so:
“If they can create a better-tasting product and if they can get people to pay more for it, then you’d have the missing ingredient, which is pricing power,” said Larry Miller…
Perhaps the missing ingredient is a decent product at a reasonable price from a company with business practices that did not make you sick to think you are supporting? Or is the sheer weight of the monolithic pseudo-monopoly simply too much to sustain or produce something of true value?