Coffee giant Starbucks' O2O practice and its inspiration

Starbucks O2O Practice Course-Starbucks is one of the first traditional catering enterprises to touch the net: Build an online community and turn online into offline services; Popularize free Internet in stores and attract a large number of offline consumers: position yourself as the third space for customers besides the workplace and home; Use Social networks to impress Starbucks brand image deeply into young people's consciousness.

Recently, when studying the O2O of American catering enterprises, Pintu Consulting found that Starbucks, as an established coffee enterprise, not only has excellent reputation online, but also actively uses the Internet to build brand image and has accumulated quite a few successful cases and experiences. The consultation found that compared with Starbucks online, which efficiently assumed the triple role of brand marketing, product sales and customer relationship management, most of the domestic catering peers were still in the initial stage of O2O testing. By sorting out Starbucks 'O2O practices, Pantu Consulting hopes to give some beneficial enlightenment to domestic catering O2O practitioners, especially local catering enterprises.

I. Starbucks O2O Practice Course

Starbucks was founded in 1971 and expanded rapidly to become one of the world's largest coffee companies by the time it went public on NASDAQ in June 1992. Starbucks, under the leadership of its CEO Howard Schultz, on the one hand, pays special attention to customer experience and is always committed to providing the best coffee and coffee consumption environment; on the other hand, Starbucks also pays great attention to using the Internet to build an online community for its overall brand image, in order to cooperate with and promote offline store sales. Starbucks is quick to embrace new things, and its Internet path has been unfolding since 1998.

Build online communities and turn online into offline services.

The study found that Starbucks was one of the first traditional catering companies to touch the Internet; Starbucks launched its official website Starbucks.com as early as 1998 to facilitate more and more Internet users to learn about Starbucks through the website. Starbucks CEO howard schultz's bigger idea was to build starbucks into an internet company that sold coffee, kitchen supplies and other products online, but he gave up because it was premature. After Schultz stepped down as CEO in 2000, Starbucks 'Internet path progressed relatively slowly. By the time Schultz returned as CEO in 2008, Starbucks faced great difficulties, one of which was that Starbucks had not established an offline brand advantage among young Internet consumers.

To that end, Starbucks launched MyStarBucksIdea.com, its interactive online community, at its March 2008 shareholder meeting (Schultz's first since becoming CEO) to encourage consumers to give Starbucks advice through the site. Unlike many companies that treat websites as mere facades, Starbucks takes feedback seriously, and by the fifth anniversary of My Starbucks Idea in March 2013, Starbucks had received 150,000 comments and suggestions, of which 277 were implemented by Starbucks. According to Pintu Consulting, Starbucks encourages consumers to make suggestions through online communities and makes corresponding adjustments in offline stores, which puts Starbucks back on track of rapid development and establishes its brand image in the minds of young consumers.

Free Internet is popularized in stores to attract offline consumers.

Starbucks positions itself as a third space for customers besides workplace and home, providing convenience to customers as much as possible to enhance customer stickiness. Pintu Consulting collected historical data and found that as a measure to provide convenience to customers, Starbucks partnered with Microsoft as early as 2001 to start offering Wifi paid Internet services to consumers in stores. In order to provide better Wifi service, Starbucks, on the one hand, changed its cooperation with better operators, from MobileStar to T-Mobile, and finally chose to have better coverage of AT&T wireless network service in 2008; on the other hand, Starbucks gradually changed the Wifi network to free and gradually released the usage time limit. In July 2010, Starbucks began offering free WiFi throughout the United States without registration and unlimited hours.

On October 20, 2010, Starbucks officially launched Starbucks Digital Network, enabling customers to read free paid content such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today and The Economist through free WiFi in Starbucks stores. The study found that Starbucks 'free online service attracted and retained a large number of customers for offline stores, which was quite successful from both revenue and brand perspectives.

Use Social networks to promote brands efficiently.

Facebook launched in 2004, YouTube launched in 2005, Twitter launched in 2006, the arrival of the social network era has brought opportunities to traditional enterprises but also made them face great challenges. Starbucks jumped on the bandwagon by signing up for a YouTube account in November 2005 and forming teams to run its Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts. With a good offline brand reputation and proper online operations, Starbucks has become one of the most popular food and beverage brands on major Social networks. As of April 17, 2013, Starbucks 'YouTube account had 17587 subscribers and its videos had been viewed 7.49 million times; Starbucks' Facebook account had received 34.26 million "likes"; and its Twitter account had 3.65 million followers.

In addition to the above three social media and Social networks, Starbucks also actively uses Pinterest, Instagarm and Google+ to serve itself. As of April 17, 2013, Starbucks had 81340 followers on Pinterest, far higher than other restaurants (McDonald's had only 2190 followers and KFC had only 1644 followers during the same period); Starbucks 'Instagram account had 1.18 million followers; and its Google+ account had 1.53 million followers.

Social networks and social media represented by Facebook and Twitter can promote brand marketing more efficiently than traditional media. Pintu Consulting found that Starbucks has established a very good brand image on mainstream Social networks and social media due to its strong emphasis and active practice; this has laid a good foundation for Starbucks to penetrate its brand image into young users and lay a good foundation for further development in the future.

Actively explore O2O in the mobile Internet era

One of the trends on the Internet is social, and another is mobile. At the dawn of the mobile Internet era, Starbucks has also made preparations and achieved a lot of successful experience. Before 2009, Starbucks provided customers with SMS query service for attached stores; based on customer suggestions in its online community My Starbucks Idea, Starbucks officially launched its first client myStarbucks in September 2009, enabling users to query nearby stores and menu drinks more quickly. Since then, Starbucks has released a number of iOS and Android apps, including Starbucks Cup Magic APP released in November 2011 and Early Bird APP released in June 2012, which are creative apps that market in a fun or encouraging way and achieve very good results.

In the mobile payment field, which is crucial to O2O, Starbucks has more strength and action. In January 2011, Starbucks launched a mobile payment client, with Starbucks mobile transactions exceeding $26 million in its first year; by January 2013, more than 7 million customers had used Starbucks mobile payment app. Starbucks also made a big move by investing $25 million in Square in August 2012, followed by Starbucks officially using Square in its stores on November 7. In early January 2013, Starbucks began selling Square in more than 7000 stores in the United States, promoting it with a $10 purchase and a $10 balance on activation. Pintu Consulting believes that Starbucks has taken important steps in the field of mobile payment through its own technology development and close cooperation with Square, which will provide a solid guarantee for Starbucks O2O online and offline integration and more efficient management.

II. Summary of Starbucks O2O practice success experience

Starbucks has made great achievements in actively exploring the O2O road. In the article "Starbucks tops the O2O list of American catering enterprises" published by Pintu Consulting on April 16, 2013, American Food News Network (NRN) ranked the socialization degree of major catering enterprises by measuring the three major social media and Social networks (Facebook, Twitter and YouTube) in the United States. Starbucks topped the social ranking of American catering enterprises with a total score of 107.09.

When analyzing Starbucks 'O2O practice, Pintu Consulting found that its success depends first on the establishment of strong brand advantages offline. Starbucks has been insisting on providing customers with the best coffee and the best service during its development process for more than 40 years, and its brand reputation has been highly affirmed by all parties. Secondly, Starbucks actively tries new things and dares to transform and upgrade its traditional services with new technologies. Compared with other traditional enterprises, Starbucks has a stronger sense of innovation, and its leaders directly participate in and promote online and offline integration, which is more decisive in terms of importance and action intensity. Thirdly, Starbucks also has more merits in using the Internet for brand marketing and promotion:

Starbucks already has a large number of offline users, so it does not use the Internet for marketing promotion to increase new customers as the first starting point, but to pay more attention to maintaining existing customer relationships. Through the Internet and offline customers who have good relationships to establish new contacts, rely on loyal customers to promote Starbucks 'concept on the Internet for word-of-mouth marketing, and finally achieve the goal of increasing new customers. At the same time, Starbucks holds online creative activities (such as personalized signature drinks) and encourages customers to actively share through Starbucks 'My Starbucks Rewards program to increase the breadth of online communication. In addition, Starbucks has always adhered to public welfare, focusing on the close combination of brand marketing and public welfare when promoting online, calling on netizens to participate while improving their reputation. Finally, Starbucks adopts full-platform marketing, and carries out corresponding operations and targeted activities according to the different characteristics of platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

So far, Starbucks has established an online operation idea that closely combines official website + online community + social media. Starbucks also launched a shopping website in August 2011.(starbucksstore.com), from the perspective of O2O, Starbucks 'online part has effectively assumed the triple role of brand marketing, product sales and customer relationship management; combined with the characteristics of mobile Internet, Starbucks' online and offline have achieved efficient integration through innovation in the field of mobile payment.

III. Enlightenment of Starbucks O2O experience to domestic catering peers

The study found that most Chinese catering enterprises did not attach strategic importance to the role of Online compared with Starbucks online, which efficiently assumed the triple role of brand marketing, product sales and customer relationship management; Although many Chinese local catering enterprises have opened relevant social media and Social networks accounts, compared with foreign catering enterprises, the ability of Chinese local catering enterprises to utilize social media or social networks is still very weak. Pintu Consulting observed the official microblogs of China's TOP30 local catering enterprises and found that most of the official microblogs of enterprises are still in the stage of decoration, with few fans, few microblogs and less communication with fans as their common characteristics.

Pintu Consulting believes that the combination of O2O online and offline is the future trend. Only by making better use of the Internet can Chinese local catering enterprises have the opportunity to become Changsheng enterprises in the future. Pintu Consulting suggests that local catering enterprises with strength should establish a special team as soon as possible to coordinate the online marketing and sales business of the enterprise; Actively learn and adapt to Social networks and social media to ensure the positive exposure of enterprise brands on major platforms; Insist on innovation, strengthen communication with online users and fans in the form of creativity combined with gifts, and improve offline services according to online feedback.

The next few years will be the key to the transformation and upgrading of China's catering industry. Chinese catering enterprises should actively embrace changes, arm themselves with advanced Internet as soon as possible, find the integration point between online and offline, and strive to build the core competitiveness of enterprises in the future with O2O thinking.