10 things Starbucks won't tell you

Jiaxiang Guide: its "personalization" is actually part of the standardization system. Starbucks, as the world's largest coffee shop chain, is also quite "standardized" in its operation, but there may be parts you like and parts you don't like.

01 / there is a smaller cup of coffee than tall

Usually the only cups we see at Starbucks are medium (tall), large (grande) and oversized (venti). In fact, there is also a small cup, the mug, with a capacity of 8 ounces (227ml), also known as the children's cup. A Starbucks clerk said: "every store has this kind of cup and knows how to configure a small cup of coffee, but it doesn't appear on the menu. It's usually not sold and needs to be put forward by customers themselves." From the point of view of cost and operation, the small cup is 3 yuan cheaper than the medium cup, but it also contains an espresso, and the profit of the medium cup is obviously higher.

02 / you don't have to buy the largest cup at Starbucks

Yoshimoto Yoshimoto said in his book "to buy a large cup of coffee at Starbucks" that, from an economic point of view, the bigger the cup, the more affordable it is. His original intention was that when the capacity of the three types of cups differed by 1 big 3, the price was only 3 yuan more. For consumers, of course, the bigger the cup, the more cost-effective. But in fact, the pricing of Starbucks coffee is carefully calculated, and this price and capacity difference benefits both customers and the company. The company pays very low cost for the extra capacity of the large cup (only a few seconds more or more milk), and the profit margin is higher in 3 yuan. The Starbucks clerk explained that the content of espresso in a medium espresso is one serving, and both the large and oversized cups are two servings, so the large cup has one more espresso and more milk than the medium cup, while the extra large cup only increases the weight of milk than the large cup.

03 / the purpose of the star card is to attract more customers

Starbucks' Starbucks card is different from the discount card. It focuses on the word "enjoy". After buying a card, it will give away three buy-one-free invitation coupons for relatives and friends, and after upgrading to a Jade Star member, there will also be an invitation coupon to buy three-for-one coffee, which is very affordable at first glance, but it is not so easy to use when it comes to real consumption. not many people buy three cups of coffee at once. A shop assistant said, "this is to ask you to bring relatives and friends to Starbucks." Making Starbucks a social media is the core purpose of many of their marketing. Paradoxically, Starbucks stores are always full, and the clerks are looking forward to you packing them all.

04 / the shop assistant may not be very good at making coffee

According to Starbucks' development plan, the number of stores in China will reach 1500 in 2015, and the existing more than 700 stores mean that an average of one new store will open in the next three years. Personnel training is a major difficulty. According to a person in the coffee industry, some Starbucks training courses have been simplified and many of the training has been devolved directly to stores, that is, the trainee system. Each Starbucks store has a store manager, an assistant manager and a duty supervisor. Originally, only by reaching these three positions could they be trained to become baristas. Now the clerk can also make coffee directly.

However, Starbucks is now using a fully automatic coffee mechanism for espresso, and "standardization" is gradually replacing "providing pure coffee service".

05 / when "custom" may need to pay more

"Standardization" is not such a popular term in the coffee industry, it means moderate standards and lack of craftsmanship. In order to reflect its "customization", Starbucks has also set the custom identification option in the fifth box of the cup, which can be changed by low cause, concentration, cream, syrup, whole milk, skim milk, soy milk, milk foam, cover and temperature. But if you want a three-part skim milk with less foam and an oversized caramel macchiato, you'll have to pay more. Syrup, cream and concentration adjustments are not free. If you want to drink "customized" coffee economically, you might as well use the Star Card coffee invitation coupon, because the invitation coupon limits "you can get a medium cup of drink" and there is no price limit.

06 / it does not allow "slow workers to do fine work"

In Starbucks' standard specification, making a cup of coffee must be very fast. If you see the clerk quickly make you a cup of coffee, do not understand that he is perfunctory, on the contrary, it should be a sign of technical maturity. A shop assistant said that the time to make an espresso must be between 18 and 23 seconds, otherwise it will be poured and remade, and the coffee will not be mixed with milk and syrup within 10 seconds, and the coffee will be scrapped. It takes about 30 to 40 seconds to make a fancy coffee.

If it were dripping coffee, it might be a little faster. Because the drip filter coffee has a shelf life of 1 hour, within 1 hour after it is done, it tastes the same.

07 / the mug is gone? They used it to make money.

Even if you drink coffee in a store, now if you don't ask for a mug, the clerk will give you disposable paper cups by default. This looks unenvironmentally friendly, and the clerks will explain that they are thinking about you. "for example, many shopping malls and airport stores have a large flow of people, and 80% to 90% of customers need to take out." But you can also understand that they are saving time and manpower in washing cups. More importantly, commemorative cups are another source of profit for Starbucks. Mugs are on the shelves instead, and Starbucks regularly launches theme cups and city cups to encourage you to buy them home. "there is a 2 yuan discount on Starbucks' own cup."

08 / only Coffee of the week will change the coffee beans.

Although Starbucks sells many kinds of coffee beans, the Italian drinks you drink in the store are always the same-Starbucks uses its own "concentrated roasted coffee beans" with fixed coffee beans. Only "freshly brewed coffee" (brewed coffee), each store will change a kind of coffee beans to make every week, so it is also called "coffee of the week". But Coffee this week is filtered coffee, and the beans are ground a day in advance, so it's cheaper.

09 / they are priced out of speculation about you

Although Starbucks follows the "standardization" strategy, but this strategy is not reflected in the price. According to the 2012 Starbucks global price list, the price of the same cup of Starbucks coffee is much higher in China than in the United States, and even higher in France. Raw material costs and tariffs are not the main factors affecting Starbucks pricing. One executive said that Starbucks products are priced with more consideration of retail space and consumer expectations. "judging from the feedback from stores in the Asia-Pacific region, the biggest complaint is the problem of large number of people rather than the issue of price." They think you are willing to spend a little more money to make the store fewer people.

10 / Food is their weakness

Since the replacement of Logo in 2011, Starbucks has removed the word "STARBUCKS COFFEE" and formally transformed itself into a multi-channel and diversified product strategy. The introduction of Chinese-style tea drinks in China and the strengthening of Starbucks food marketing are examples of this change. But for the time being, food is still Starbucks' weakness. The main problem is that they cannot be made on site, all the food is uniformly distributed by the company, and even the clerk himself does not know the exact time of production and the freshness of the ingredients. Recently, Starbucks has advertised the introduction of ovens worth 50,000 yuan in many stores, which can be heated in 20 seconds. Notice, it's just for heating.

Author: Wang Rufang and Tang Xianxia

Source: good luck MONEY+