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Why did Starbucks not follow suit when the price went up? Cause disclosure

Published: 2026-05-18 Author: World Gafei

Last Updated: 2026/05/18, Starbucks raised the price of its goods by up to 16%, but its business was not affected. (file photo) chain coffee brands, including Starbucks and 85C, have recently announced a series of increases in the price of their products, but convenience stores that are also selling coffee have indicated that they will not follow suit. Why are they clearly selling the same product, but the pricing strategy is completely different? Yang Shaofu, deputy director of Dongfang online, wrote an article

Starbucks raised the price of its goods by up to 16%, but its business was not affected. (information photos of this department)

Coffee chains, including Starbucks and 85C, have recently announced a series of increases in the prices of their products, but convenience stores that are also selling coffee have indicated that they will not follow suit. Why is the pricing strategy so different when they are clearly selling the same product?

Yang Shaofu, deputy director of Dongfang online, wrote an article and analyzed that for most consumers, convenience stores are places to buy coffee every day, and an increase in prices will cause a strong backlash; in contrast, chain coffee shops that occasionally meet customers' coffee needs have higher price flexibility, coupled with a strong brand, consumers will naturally accept new commodity prices after a period of time, thus breaking the key for merchants to adjust pricing.

Citing Dongfang online survey data, Yang Shaofu pointed out that brewed coffee is almost the first choice of coffee people in recent years. The proportion of coffee drinkers who have drunk "freshly brewed coffee" in the past three months has increased from 79% in 2014 to 85% in 2016. Convenience stores and chain coffee shops are the most popular ways to make coffee.

From the digital analysis, it can be found that the proportion of consumers who "did not go to the coffee shop chain at all" in the past three months dropped from 61% in 2014 to 55.3% in 2016, but the consumption frequency is mostly "once every two weeks or less". It shows that the market of chain coffee shops is still growing, but consumers only regard it as a "occasional" joy of life, not to meet the refreshing needs of going to work every day.

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