The "herding effect" of cafes and Starbucks Coffee

Many people have the dream of opening a coffee shop, but after the coffee shop opens, it is different from what is expected. There is not so much literature, petty bourgeoisie and freedom. What is pressing on them is more realistic problems such as rent, water and electricity. It's easy to open a shop, just have the money, and what's next? However, to keep learning, update their knowledge, improve themselves, in order to face the problems that follow. I recommend this book "Weird Behavior". Although I bought it in 2011, the content is absolutely wonderful. I attach an article related to Starbucks.

Now that we know that we behave like geese, it is important to understand how we translate our initial decisions into long-term habits. To illustrate this process, consider this example. You walk past a restaurant and see two people waiting in line. "This must be a nice restaurant," you think."People are lining up." So you're in the back. There's another one coming. He saw three people in line and thought,"This restaurant must be great," so he joined the queue. There were some more people, and so were they. We call this behavior the herd effect. The sheep effect is a way to infer whether something is good or bad based on the behavior of others and decide whether we should follow suit.

But there is another herd effect, which we call the "ego herd effect." This happens when we infer that something is good or bad based on our previous behavior. This basically means that if we queue up at a restaurant, once we get to the top of the queue, we will queue up behind ourselves later in the experience. Does that make sense? Let me explain.

Think back to the first time you walked into Starbucks, probably years ago. That afternoon you went out on errands and felt sleepy and wanted something to refresh yourself. You look in the Starbucks window and walk in. The price of coffee surprises you-you've been lucky for years to drink brewed coffee from Dunkin 'Donuts. But since you're here, you wonder: what does coffee taste like at this price? So you do something that surprises you: order a glass, enjoy the taste and feel of it, and walk out.

The next week you pass Starbucks again, will you go in again? The ideal decision process would be to consider the quality of the coffee (Starbucks vs. Dunkin 'Donuts), the price of the two places, and of course the cost of walking a few blocks to Dunkin' Donuts. Perhaps this calculation is too complicated-so you take a simple approach: "I've been to Starbucks, I like the coffee there, and I'm happy. I must be right to go there." So you went in and ordered a small cup of coffee.

By doing so, you're actually in second place, behind yourself. A few days later, you walk into Starbucks again, and this time, you remember exactly what you decided before, and you do it again-okay, you're third in line, behind your second self. As the weeks go by, you go into Starbucks again and again, each time feeling more strongly that you are doing it because you like it. So going to Starbucks for coffee has become your habit.

The story does not end here. Now that you're used to spending a little on coffee, you're inadvertently driving up your consumption level, and the rest of the change is simple. Maybe you'll switch from a small $2.20 to a medium $3.50 to a large $4.15. Even if you have no idea how you got into this price bracket, it seems logical to pay a little more for a bigger glass. The same is true of Starbucks 'other horizontal range of coffee varieties, such as American coffee, Mistral milk coffee, caramel macchiato, Frappuccino, etc.

If you stop and think about it, you might not know whether to spend your money on Starbucks coffee or go to Dunkin Donuts for cheaper coffee or even free coffee at the office. But you no longer consider the contrast between them. You've made this decision many times before, and you naturally think Starbucks is the place to spend your money. You've joined the ego herd-you've queued up at Starbucks behind your previous experience-you've joined the herd.

But there is something strange about this story. If anchor is based on our initial decision, how exactly did Starbucks become your initial decision? In other words, if we were anchored at Dunkin 'Donuts, how do we transfer our anchor to Starbucks? The really interesting part is here.

Howard? When Schultz founded Starbucks, he was a friend of Salvador. Asar has the same intuition as a businessman. He did everything he could to differentiate Starbucks from other coffee shops-not in terms of price, but in terms of taste. From that point on, his design for Starbucks gave the impression of a continental coffee house.

The early shops smelled of roasted coffee beans (the quality of the beans was better than Dunkin 'Donuts). They sell fancy French coffee presses. In the window, there are all kinds of tempting snacks-almond croissants, Italian cookies, red mulberry souffle and so on. Dunkin 'Donuts has small, medium, and large coffees, Starbucks offers small, medium, large, and extra-large coffees, and there are all kinds of fancy drinks with fancy names, such as American coffee, mistletoe milk coffee, caramel macchiato, frappuccino, and so on. In other words, Starbucks has gone to great lengths to create an experience that is different-so different that we no longer anchor ourselves with Dunkin 'Donuts prices, but instead open our minds to new anchors Starbucks has for us. Starbucks 'success depends largely on this.