SEATTLE – Following pressure from shareholders, Starbucks have revealed their solution to a lack of expansion space by announcing they will begin opening new franchise locations inside rival coffee shops.
The company’s strategy of rapid expansion into redundant locations has slowed in recent years, forcing CEO Howard Shultz to outline a plan to bring the Starbucks brand into shops that already sell coffee.
“Having two Starbucks within 50 feet of one another was a good start for us, but now we need to take that pointless redundancy to its next logical level,” Mr Shultz explained.
Expansion plans
Starbucks’ executives are agreed that by opening their shops within existing coffee chains, they could capitalise on the promising market of people who are already being served coffee.
Mr Shultz said: “We reviewed the figures and the data was clear: 90% of people who go into coffee shops like Costa and Cafe Nero already have coffee.”
“There’s no particular reason for us to be in those locations, the demand is already being met…so it makes perfect sense to us to open new Starbucks shops within these places.”
There was no comment from the chains in question, though they are thought to be wary about the proposed expansion plans. The reaction from customers was one of cautious practicality.
“It sounds like a good idea I guess,” said one coffee patron. “At least now I won’t have to choose between coffee from here and coffee from there. I can have both.”
‘We’ve only scratched the surface of being redundant’
Indeed, several rival baristas noted that the presence of a Starbucks on site would make the trip easier should they wish to grab a Grande Latte on the way to work.
Chief marketing officer Annie Young-Scrivner was bullish on future plans of the company:
“We’re so excited by the prospect of new locations in places that already sell coffee in the US and in international markets as it allows us to continue the non-stop and largely unnecessary expansion of the Starbucks brand into places we don’t really need to be in.”
Following on from that logic, Mr Shultz said it was not beyond the realm of possibility to look at expanding the chain’s presence to other locations where there was already a perfectly good supply to local coffee demands such as inside existing Starbucks shops.
“Our aim is to make our customers say ‘Why is there a Starbucks here?’ Every time they see our logo.”
Leave a Reply