Walk Farther to Your Local Starbucks

I guess the day has finally come. For years it seemed that Starbucks was going to continue its rapid-fire growth until finally there would be a Starbucks literally every five feet. We were getting close to that point now in most major metropolitan areas. Go into any major city on the east coast and you'll be inundated with Starbucks overload. One location literally feet apart for the purpose of maintaining positive coffee flow to faithful paying customers. However, the shoe began to drop when fuel costs started to rise and more and more began to realize that paying $4 for a cup of coffee that you could buy for about 99-cents at Dunkin Donuts meant an extra gallon of fuel for your car. And lets face it, if you don't have fuel in your car, you aren't getting to work and you wouldn't be able to afford that $4 latte anymore.

So what to do? Well the solution according to Starbucks is to close down nearly 600 stores that have been on their internal 'watch list' for some time due to underperformance and poor profitability. I think it's probably a good thing because as much as I enjoy Starbucks, it was getting to the point that they were having a Ferrari attitude with a Toyota product. What do I mean by that? Well obviously both Ferrari and Toyota are good but you tend to view the Ferrari in slightly higher regard due to the fact that while it is expensive, it is rare. You don't see everyone driving one to and from the grocery store so obviously, it is something well manufactured so you'll pay more for it. Contrast that with a Toyota Camry (or similar model). There's tons of them on the road and they are affordable. Now obviously if you had a Ferrari manufactured at the standard of a Toyota then you'd really wonder why you should pay for a Ferrari when you can have a Toyota at the same price (and get better fuel mileage and cargo space).

But I digress; I think it's probably a wise decision because as fuel prices continue to rise (and they aren't going to be dropping off anytime soon), people are cutting back on expenses. More and more people are carpooling. Normal things that were once considered necessities are now considered extravagances and are no longer purchased with such reckless abandon. Chief among those was Starbucks coffee. For a long time, it was the only place to get a special coffee drink fairly quickly. Now there are those who absolutely have to have a cup of coffee prepared in a very specific way. Exactly two shots of this with a shot of that, no whip, extra hot, double foam, skinny soy low fat mocha powder sugar free cinnamon grande frappucino. I think for the rest of us out there, a simple cup of coffee will suffice.

Go into any McDonalds or Dunkin Donuts now and you're liable to find the same sorts of 'basic' coffee drinks that many people would go to Starbucks for and you'll find it for a whole lot less. I think the basic difference between the two was that Starbucks always wanted to be out there and viewed as an 'upper class' coffee house that meant you were paying premium prices for premium coffee but it had degenerated over time in order to speed up the process. I remember that when you ordered coffee early on when the chain was expanding, they would grind the beans right then and there. Now they use pre-ground beans. I can do that on my own too. Why should I pay more for it? I can get the same thing at McDonalds for about a fourth of the cost.

The company's philosophy had become that you shouldn't have to wait or hesitate to find a Starbucks, there should always be one very close to you so that you can fulfill your cravings immediately upon the start of the impulse. As a result some locations ended up being visited more often than others. I have been in some where it had been so long between customers that the baristas were able to sit down and do their homework and not realize that I had walked in. Perhaps this move to cut down locations and rein the focus back on the customer will be a good thing. I guess the only downside is that we'll have to wait for a bit before walking into one of the remaining 12,000 Starbucks locations. Look at the brightside though, at least the extra walk may help you save a few extra gallons of fuel.